Word.ws English Dictionary

jelly

UK/ˈd͡ʒɛli/

More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations

Australia/ˈd͡ʒeli/

jelly noun: a dessert made by boiling gelatine (or a plant-based alternative such as agar or carrageenan), sugar and some flavouring (often derived from fruit) and allowing it to set. Also the clipping of jelly coconut.

jelly: a dessert made by boiling gelatine (or a plant-based alternative such as agar or carrageenan),...
Image: Ineffablebookkeeper, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Noun (1)

jelly (countable and uncountable, plural jellies)

  1. (Commonwealth) A dessert made by boiling gelatine (or a plant-based alternative such as agar or carrageenan), sugar and some flavouring (often derived from fruit) and allowing it to set.
    • His mother prepared jelly for him and his friends for dessert.
    • Rincewind relaxed slightly, which was to say that he still made a violin string look like a bowl of jelly.1983, Terry Pratchett, The Colour of Magic, published 2022, page 127
    Synonyms:
    jello, Jell-O
  2. (Canada, US) A clear or translucent fruit preserve, made from fruit juice and set using either naturally occurring, or added, pectin.
    • Perfect jelly is of appetizing flavor; beautifully colored and translucent; tender enough to cut easily with a spoon, yet firm enough to hold its shape when turned from the glass.1945, Fannie Merritt Farmer and Wilma Lord Perkins (revisor), The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, Eighth edition
    • Jelly has great clarity. Two cooking processes are involved. First, the juice alone is extracted from the fruit. Only that portion thin and clear enough to drip through a cloth is cooked with sugar until sufficiently firm to hold its shape. It is never stiff and never gummy.1975, Irma S. Rombauer and Marion Rombauer Becker, The Joy of Cooking, 5th revision
    Synonyms:
    jam, marmalade
  3. A savoury substance, derived from meat, that has the same texture as the dessert.
    Synonyms:
    aspic
  4. Any substance or object having the consistency of the dessert or preserve.
    • calf's-foot jelly
    • Sam floored him perpetually, and beat his face to a jelly, without getting a scratch.1821, Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, volume 8, page 67
  5. A jellyfish.
    • Species of the phylum Cnidaria – the classic jelly – have existed in something close to their current form for at least 565 million years; Ctenophora, the comb jellies, are not much younger.2014, Theo Tait, ‘Water-Borne Zombies’, London Review of Books, volume 36, number 5
  6. (archaic, slang) A pretty girl; a girlfriend.
    • ‘Gowan goes to Oxford a lot,’ the boy said. ‘He′s got a jelly there.’1931, William Faulkner, Sanctuary, Vintage, published 1993, page 25
  7. (US, slang) A large backside, especially a woman's.
    • I shake my jelly at every chance / When I whip with my hips you slip into a trance2001, “Bootylicious”, in Survivor, performed by Destiny's Child
    • At that Sister Samantha seemed to shake her jelly so that she sank back into her chair.2001, George Dell, Dance Unto the Lord, page 94
  8. (colloquial) A jelly shoe.
    • Mary Alice gazed at a picture of herself wearing jellies and an oversized turquoise T-shirt that matched her eyes […]2006, David L. Marcus, What It Takes to Pull Me Through
  9. (US, colloquial) Blood.

Verb

jelly (third-person singular simple present jellies, present participle jellying, simple past and past participle jellied)

  1. (transitive) To make into jelly.
  2. (transitive) To preserve in jelly.
  3. To wiggle like jelly.

Adjective

jelly (comparative more jelly, superlative most jelly)

  1. (slang) Jealous.
    • If the guy wants to party and bang porn stars, and he's not hurting anyone who really cares?
      I think a lot of guys are just jelly! :-)2011 February 28, Abby Normal [username], “Re: OT VERY FUNNY: MY NEW HERO CHARLIE SHEEN”, in rec.games.pinball (Usenet)
    • "I think other people make rude comments because they're jelly [jealous] bro," Schroer said. "We're just showing our love to other people."2011, "Exchange smiles, not saliva", The Banner (Grand Blanc High School), Volume 47, Issue 2, December 2011, page 17

Noun (2)

jelly (uncountable)

  1. (India) Vitrified brick refuse used as metal in building roads.
    • Under pinning with jelly in chunam — one square.1862, Notes on Building and Road-making, with Rules for Estimating Repairs to Tanks and Channels, page 143

Also used as

jelly is also the clipping of jelly coconut.

jelly is also the alternative spelling of gelly.

jelly meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

jelly in Hindi

जेली, जैली

jelly in Tamil

ஜெல்லி, ஜெல்லியை

jelly in Marathi

जेली

jelly in Urdu

جیلی
More languagesFewer languages
jelly in Bengali
জেলি
jelly in Telugu
జెల్లీ
jelly in Malayalam
ജെല്ലി
jelly in Kannada
ಜೆಲ್ಲಿ, ಜೆಲ್ಲಿಯು
jelly in Punjabi
ਜੈਲੀ, ਜੇਲੀ
jelly in Gujarati
જેલી
jelly in Odia
ଜେଲୀ, ଜେଲି
jelly in Nepali
जेली
jelly in Tagalog
haleya
jelly in Arabic
هُلَام hulām
jelly in Malay
lengkong, jeli
jelly in Indonesian
selai, jeli
jelly in Persian
ژله žele, لرزانک larzânak, هلام holâm
jelly in Thai
แยม yɛɛm, เยลลี, เจลลี
jelly in Vietnamese
thạch, rau câu

Examples of jelly in a sentence

  • The jelly jiggled in the bowl for a few moments after it was set down.
  • I gave them apples from my tree; they reciprocated with a pie and some apple jelly.
  • He can’t even make himself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich? What a nub.

All 40 example sentences with jelly

Synonyms of jelly

All synonyms of jelly

Forms of jelly

Noun
pluraljellies
alternative form (obsolete)gelly
Verb
third-person singular presentjellies
present participlejellying
past participlejellied
pastjellied
Adjective
comparativemore jelly
superlativemost jelly

Plural of jelly: jellies

Origin of jelly

Inherited from Middle English gele. Doublet of gelee.

Clipping of jealous + -y (informal adjective ending).

Words formed from jelly

Phrases with jelly

27 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with jelly

15 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about jelly

What does jelly mean?
Jelly means a dessert made by boiling gelatine (or a plant-based alternative such as agar or carrageenan), sugar and some flavouring (often derived from fruit) and allowing it to set.
What is jelly in Hindi?
Jelly in Hindi is जेली, जैली. See Jelly meaning in Hindi.
What part of speech is jelly?
Jelly can be a noun, a verb or an adjective.
How do you pronounce jelly?
Jelly is pronounced /ˈd͡ʒɛli/ (UK).
What is the plural of jelly?
The plural of jelly is jellies.

Words near jelly in the dictionary

  1. jellopped
  2. jellops
  3. jellos
  4. jells
  5. jells out
  6. jelly
  7. jelly babies
  8. jelly baby
  9. jelly bean
  10. jelly beans
  11. jelly bellies

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: jelly (page history and authors); jelly (Hindi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); jelly (Tamil, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); jelly (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); jelly (Urdu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); jelly (Bengali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); jelly (Telugu, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); jelly (Malayalam, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); jelly (Kannada, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); jelly (Punjabi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); jelly (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); jelly (Odia, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); jelly (Nepali, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model 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: en-us-jelly.ogg, EN-AU ck1 jelly.ogg.

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