jello
jello Lexical Profile
jello Game Scores & Validity
• noun
North American A sweet, fruit-flavored, translucent dessert made with gelatin.
"The hospital cafeteria always served small plastic cups of red jello with lunch."
North American Any soft, wobbly, and gelatinous substance.
"After the grueling marathon, my legs felt like jello and I could barely walk up the stairs."
Word Nuance & Usage
In North American English, 'jello' is a genericized trademark used for fruit-flavored gelatin desserts, whereas British and Commonwealth speakers typically refer to this exact same dessert as 'jelly'.
• Rhymes for jello
Word Origin & Etymology
Derived from the trademark 'Jell-O', coined in 1897 by carpenter and syrup manufacturer Pearle B. Wait and his wife May. They combined 'jell' (to congeal) with the suffix '-o', a popular convention for commercial product names at the time.
Usage Trend
Historical frequency of usage in published text.