Gélido, Icy in English, is something very cold or is extremely cold.
It refers to an environment, also alluding to an element or in the environment, that is very cold or very icy, that is at temperature below normal or is in places such as at a pole or snowy.
It can also be used figuratively.
SYNONYMS FOR Gélido
- Icy
- Cold
- Frozen
- Glacial
- Distant
- Detached
ORIGIN OF Gélido
The word gelid comes from the Latin gelĭdus composed of: gelum, which is the same from where the word ice comes from and hence also the word gelatin. It is linked to the Indo-European root gel-2 (cold, to freeze).
It also derives from the suffix idus (-ido which is a quality perceptible by the senses, provided with), as in the case of arid, warm, solid, acid, etc.
On the other hand, it is also thought that gélido comes from the Greek gelatos meaning smile, which is the same grimace we make when we are cold.
Actually, the Greek word gelos (laughter), gelatos (of laughter). It has nothing to do with the Latin gelidus. It comes from another Indo-European root gel-3 (bright), also present in glene, from which we have glenoids.
It is also believed that there is rather a Hebrew-Aramaic root that is associated with the concept of gelid.
The term glid appears in Hebrew in the first or second century of our era and means “frost” or “extremely cold” (in the environment) in texts of the “Mischna”, edited at that time by Rabbi Yehudah Hannasi.
CURIOSITIES OF Gélido
The coldest known place is not in Antarctica or in outer space, but in one of the few laboratories that compete to reach the limit of low temperatures, -273.15°C or absolute zero, the point at which even atoms stop moving.