Word.ws English Dictionary

gelt

/ɡɛlt/

gelt noun: a lunatic. Also the simple past and past participle of geld.

Noun (1)

gelt (plural gelts)

  1. (rare) A lunatic.
    • She […] like a ghastly Gelt whose wits are reaved, / Ran forth in hast with hideous outcry […]1596, Edmund Spenser, “Book IV, Canto VII”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC

Noun (2)

gelt (plural gelts)

  1. (obsolete) Gilding; gilt.

Noun (3)

gelt (plural gelts)

  1. A gelding.
    • spay'd Gelts1707, J[ohn] Mortimer, The Whole Art of Husbandry; or, The Way of Managing and Improving of Land. […], London: […] J[ohn] H[umphreys] for H[enry] Mortlock […], and J[onathan] Robinson […], →OCLC

Noun (4)

gelt (usually uncountable, plural gelts)

  1. (usually, especially thieves' cant and Polari, later Judaism and general slang) Money.
    • That nothynge had / There of theyr awne / Neyther gelt nor pawne.c. 1529, John Skelton, The Tunning of Elynour Rummyng, section 610
    • It amounts to not above 12000 Fr. Rhenish, yearly, in bare gelt.1591 (1685), Henry Wotton, in Reliquiae Wottonianae, 616
  2. (usually) Tribute; tax.
    • All these the king granted unto them […] free from all gelts [guilds] and payments, in a most full and ample manner.1655, Thomas Fuller, The History of Waltham Abbey
  3. (Judaism, usually) Money, especially that given as a gift on Hanukkah or used in games of dreidel.
  4. (Judaism, usually) Chocolate candy in the shape of coins, usually wrapped in metallic foil, usually eaten on Hanukkah and often used for games of dreidel.

Also used as

gelt is also the simple past and past participle of geld.

Examples of gelt in a sentence

  • He was on his way to collect the Dominie's gelt; for the Dutch always took care the stipend to the minister should be competent, that so he never might be straitened 'to desire a gift.'1816, Egbert Benson, in a memoir read before the New York Historical Society [in 1816], quoted in History of the School of the Collegiate...
  • Have bought some farm land in Rio Grande Valley which should bring in a sizeable bundle of gelts come cotton picking time.1948, William Burroughs, letter, 5 Jun 1948

Forms of gelt

pluralgelts

Origin of gelt

Borrowed from Irish geilt.

Variation of gilt.

See geld.

Words formed from gelt

  • rum-gelt
  • smear-gelt

Words that rhyme with gelt

12 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about gelt

What does gelt mean?
Gelt means a lunatic.
How do you use gelt in a sentence?
He was on his way to collect the Dominie's gelt; for the Dutch always took care the stipend to the minister should be competent, that so he never might be straitened 'to desire a gift.'
What part of speech is gelt?
Gelt is a noun.
How do you pronounce gelt?
Gelt is pronounced /ɡɛlt/ (UK).
What is the plural of gelt?
The plural of gelt is gelts.

Words near gelt in the dictionary

  1. gelsemiums
  2. Gelsenkirchen
  3. gelsolin
  4. gelsolins
  5. Gelston Park
  6. gelt
  7. gelts
  8. Gelug
  9. Gelugpa chanting
  10. gelvatol
  11. geländeläufer

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gelt (page history and authors). 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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-gelt.wav.

Cite this entry: “gelt.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gelt. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.