geld
/ɡɛld/
geld noun: a payment.
Noun (1)
geld (countable and uncountable, plural gelds)
Verb (1)
geld (third-person singular simple present gelds, present participle gelding, simple past and past participle gelded)
- To tax geld.
Verb (2)
geld (third-person singular simple present gelds, present participle gelding, simple past and past participle gelded or gelt)
- To castrate a male (usually an animal).
- "Poor old Topaz," said Mrs Flanders, as he stretched himself out in the sun, and she smiled, thinking how she had had him gelded, and how she did not like red hair in men.1922, Virginia Woolf, Jacob's Room, Vintage Classics, paperback edition, pages 16–17
- To suppress or severely reduce sexual desire or libido.
- Camphor if smell'd
A man will geld.1961, Harry E. Wedeck, Dictionary of Aphrodisiacs, New York: The Citadel Press, page 213
- Camphor if smell'd
- To deprive of anything essential; to weaken.
Noun (2)
geld (plural gelds)
geld meaning in Tamil, Urdu and Malayalam
geld in Tamil
- காயடித்தல், விரை நீக்கம், பணம்
geld in Urdu
- باج, خراج, آختہ کرنا, بچہ دانی نکالنا, کمزور کر دینا, خارج کرنا
geld in Malayalam
- desex, castrate, neuter
- വന്ധ്യംകരിക്കുക, ഗർഭോല്പാദനശേഷി നശിപ്പിക്കുക, വരിഉടയ്ക്കുക, വൃഷണം ഉടയ്ക്കുക, വൃഷണച്ഛേദം ചെയ്ക, പുരുഷത്വം നശിപ്പിക്കുക
Forms of geld
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | gelds |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | gelds |
| present participle | gelding |
| past participle | gelded |
| past | gelded |
| past participle | gelt |
| past | gelt |
Origin of geld
From Middle English geld (and reinforced by Medieval Latin geldum), both from Old English ġeld, ġield (“payment, tribute”) (which regularly yield yield), from Proto-West Germanic *geld, from Proto-Germanic *geldą (“reward, gift, money”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰeldʰ- (“to pay”). Probably reinforced by gelt (which see), see Norwegian Bokmål gjeld (“debt”), Danish gæld (“debt”) (whence apparently the otherwise irregular hard g in Middle English geld and perhaps also in Medieval Latin geldum, as opposed to the regular continuation yield from Old English). Geld is also written gelt or gild, and as such found in wergild, Danegeld, etc. Doublet of yield. Cognates Cognate with North Frisian jild (“money”), Saterland Frisian Jield, Jäild (“money”), Dutch geld (“money”), German Geld (“money”), Old Norse gjald (“payment”), Gothic 𐌲𐌹𐌻𐌳 (gild, “tribute”). Also related to English yield.
From Middle English gelden, from Old Norse gelda (“to geld, castrate”), from Proto-Germanic *galdijaną (“to castrate”), from Proto-Indo-European *gʰel- (“to cut”). Cognate with Old Norse geldr (“yielding no milk, dry”), German galt, gelt (“not giving milk, barren”), Gothic 𐌲𐌹𐌻𐌸𐌰 (gilþa, “sickle”). Compare the archaic German Gelze (“castrated swine”) and gelzen (“to castrate”), Danish galt (“castrated boar”) (from Old Norse gǫltr (“boar, hog”), cognate with English gilt and gilde (“to geld”). "gelding" derives from Old Norse geldingr.
Words formed from geld
Words that rhyme with geld
Questions about geld
- What does geld mean?
- Geld means a payment.
- What is geld in Tamil?
- Geld in Tamil is காயடித்தல், விரை நீக்கம், பணம். See Geld meaning in Tamil.
- What part of speech is geld?
- Geld can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce geld?
- Geld is pronounced /ɡɛld/.
- What is the plural of geld?
- The plural of geld is gelds.
Words near geld in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: geld (page history and authors); geld (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); geld (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); geld (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-geld.wav.
Cite this entry: “geld.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/geld. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.