Gelden

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. An archaic verb meaning to remove the reproductive glands of an animal, especially a male horse or livestock, to render it sterile
2. Obsolete English term for castrating a male animal by removing its testicles so that it can no longer reproduce
3. A dated word for surgically sterilizing an animal, usually a male, by taking out its testes to make it more docile

Etymology: "Gelden" comes from Middle English "gelden," from Old Norse "gelda," meaning to castrate, and it is related to "geld," an adjective meaning barren or sterile, which in turn descends from a Germanic root. The word's Old Norse ancestry shows that it reached English through Scandinavian speakers, not through the Norman French that brought so much of the rest of our vocabulary. The word has a close sibling in the noun "gelding," a castrated horse, which has kept the older sense alive in everyday speech while the verb itself has grown rare. Speakers of modern English are more likely to meet "geld" in historical texts or in discussions of horse breeding than in ordinary conversation.