jeel

English

Etymology 1

Noun

jeel (plural jeels)

1. Alternative form of jheel (“wetland area in India”)
   • 1820, Walter Hamilton, A Geographical, Statistical, and Historical Description of Hindostan and the Adjacent Countries, volume 1, page 246:

     The pieces of stagnant water may be divided into jeels which contain water throughout the year, and chaongre which dry up in the cold season.

   • 1827, East India Company, Journey across the Arracan Mountains: The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Miscellany, volume 23, page 16:

     On the banks of this jeel the party encamped, about two miles from the village.

   • 1827, The Burmese War: Operations on the Sihet Frontier, 1824: The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British India and Its Dependencies, volume 24, page 551:

     The reports of some hircarrahs having induced a belief that a short passage might be discovered across the jeels from the Gogra towards Tilyn, Lieut. Fisher, of the Quarter-Master General's department, was despatched to reconnoitre the outlets from that river, accompanied by Lieut. Craigie and five sipahees, in two dingees.

   • 1934, George Orwell, Burmese Days:

     There were snipe in countless myriads, and wild geese in flocks that rose from the jeel with a roar like a goods train crossing an iron bridge.

Etymology 2

Manx jeeyl, jeeill ("damage"), cognate to Irish díobháil.

Noun

jeel

1. (Isle of Man) Damage; harm.
   • 1889, Thomas Edward Brown, The Manx Witch: And Other Poems, page 79:

     And the gel, you know, as freckened as freckened,
     Because of coorse she navar reckoned
     But Misthriss Banks could do the jeel ¹
     She was braggin she could, and she'd take and kneel
     On her bended knees, and she'd cuss — the baste !
     […]
     ¹ Damage.

   • 1908, Cushag (Josephine Kermode), Eunys, Or the Dalby Maid, page 16:

     An' first an' last upon the flure, an' spinnin' at the wheel,

     But that strange silence on her still of what had done the jeel.

   • 1924, Sophia Morrison, Edmund Goodwin, A vocabulary of the Anglo-Manx dialect,

     page 73, entry "Govvag":

     The jeel (damage) the govags is doin to the nets is urrov all marcy.

     page 188, entry "Traa-dy-liooar":

     An' the wan (one) that's doin all the jeel (damage) is wickad Traa-dy-liooar (Time-enough). (Cushag.)

Further reading

• William Dwight Whitney and Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1914), “jeel”, in The Century Dictionary: An Encyclopedic Lexicon of the English Language, revised edition, volumes III (Hoop–O), New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.

Saterland Frisian

Etymology

From Old Frisian *jele, from Proto-West Germanic *gelu. Cognates include German gelb and West Frisian giel.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /jeːl/
• Hyphenation: jeel
• Rhymes: -eːl

Adjective

jeel (masculine jelen, feminine, plural or definite jele, comparative jeler, superlative jeelst)

1. yellow

References

• Marron C. Fort (2015) “jeel”, in Saterfriesisches Wörterbuch mit einer phonologischen und grammatischen Übersicht, Buske, →ISBN