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Make Your Point > Archived Issues > CONGEAL

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pronounce CONGEAL:

kun JEEL
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connect this word to others:

As I've mentioned before, we have a bunch of words from the Latin gelare ("to freeze") and gelum ("frost") that indicate coldness or stiffness, like gel, gelatin, gelato, gel__ ("intensely cold, either painfully or refreshingly"), and congeal, which we'll explore right now!

(To reveal any word with blanks, give it a click.)  

definition:

"Congeal" has Latin bits that literally mean "to freeze together." It's among the oldest words in English, dating back to the 1300s.

It literally means "to freeze: to turn from liquid to solid."

And figuratively, it means "to start to become one thing together, as if the parts are all clumping into a solid."

grammatical bits:

Part of speech:

Verb, often the intransitive kind: "The thoughts congealed in his mind;" "The thoughts congealed into a plan;" "The thoughts congealed."

Other forms: 

The other verb forms are "congealed" and "congealing."

For a noun, we've got "congealment" and "congelation" (also spelled "congealation").

how to use it:

Pick the serious, scientific, semi-common word "congeal" when you want to say that the pieces of something are coming together into a whole, starting to make sense and seem complete.

Although "congealing" can be a good thing, the tone can also be a little gross, implying wet, sticky clumps of things. That's because we talk literally about various fluids or chunky substances that congeal, like grease, blood, and overcooked oatmeal.

But we also talk about figurative things that congeal without any overtone of ickiness, like ideas, images, thoughts, plans, hopes, patterns, visions, teams, systems, processes, and movements.

examples:

"You have read this strange and terrific story, Margaret; and do you not feel your blood congeal with horror, like that which even now curdles mine?"  
  — Mary Shelley, Frankenstein, 1818

"Slogans... repeated often enough, congeal as truth."   
  — Simon Morrison, Time, 25 May 2016

"Ms. Jochnowitz estimated that 300 to 500 pounds of pasta had been left to congeal in the woods. She documented the pasta with the camera on her phone, emailed a town official to report the find and posted the photos on Facebook."   
  — Michael Levenson, New York Times, 4 May 2023

has this page helped you understand "congeal"?

   

Awesome, I'm glad it helped!

Thanks for letting me know!
If you have any questions about this term, please message me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.


study it:

Explain the meaning of "congeal" without saying "solidify" or "come together."

try it out:

As we've seen, it can sound kind of icky to say that something congeals, as if it's forming into a dense blob or a hunk of goo.

That's probably what Ann Hornaday meant to imply when she wrote this about the movie The Batman:

"The plot doesn't thicken so much as congeal, as windy explanatory speeches fill in for compelling or surprising action."

With that in mind as an example, what's another movie, or a book or show, whose plot seems to congeal rather than thicken? What is it that slows the story down, congealing it into an unpleasant narrative goo?




before you review, play:

Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.

Our game this month is "Literally That."

I’ll give you a gif and several synonyms that describe it, and you figure out which of these synonyms is most literally illustrated in the gif. You can check out some examples here.

Try this one today:

(Source)

A. jettison
B. eliminate
C. defenestrate

To see the answer, scroll all the way down. 

review this word:

1. The opposite of CONGEAL could be

A. HIDE or DISSIMULATE.
B. LIQUEFY or DISSIPATE.
C. CONFUSE or DISCOMBOBULATE.

2. On the topic of someone who brings up contentious politics at Thanksgiving dinners, Emily Yoffe wrote: "He's not going to change their minds, all he does is congeal the mood like _____."

A. burnt butter
B. flat champagne
C. overcooked gravy




Answers to the review questions:
1. B
2. C

From the game:

I was thinking of defenestrate: literally "to chuck out a window." To jettison is to chuck overboard on a ship, and to eliminate, in the most literal sense, is to chuck out a door


a final word:


I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.

I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.


From my blog:
On vocabulary...
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A disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.

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