jellies
Word family
Synonym discussion
Sense: noun/1
These four words all label sweet fruit spreads but differ by how much fruit you can see and which fruit is used. 'Jellies' are strained smooth and contain only the clear juice plus sugar, so you never bite into a piece of fruit. 'Jams' keep crushed fruit and pulp in the mixture, giving a thicker, less shiny texture that spreads in soft chunks. 'Preserves' go further still and keep whole or large chunks of fruit suspended in syrup. 'Marmalades' are made specifically from citrus fruit and almost always include thin strips of orange or lemon peel for a bittersweet taste. At an American breakfast you might choose grape jellies for toast, blueberry jams for pancakes, peach preserves for biscuits, and orange marmalade for English muffins.
Common collocations
Nouns
- jars of jellies
- pots of jellies
- trays of jellies
- tray of fruit jellies
Phrases
- homemade jellies
- fruit jellies
- wobbly jellies
- pair of jellies
Prepositions
- jellies in jars
- jellies on bread
- jellies of every colour
Etymology
'Jellies' is simply the plural of 'jelly', which entered English around the fourteenth century from Old French 'gelee', meaning 'a frost' or 'a thing frozen'. That French noun came from Latin 'gelare', 'to freeze', the same root that gives us 'gel' and 'glacier'. The link is the way a hot liquid cools and stiffens, similar to water freezing. From the original cooking sense the word later stretched to cover the wobbly desserts of the nineteenth century, the soft body tissues inside animals, and most recently the bright plastic beach shoes named for their see-through, gel-like look.