Green’s Dictionary of Slang

jelly n.1

1. semen; vaginal fluid; also attrib.

[Donne Progress of the Soul xxiii: A female fishes sandie Roe With the males ielly newly lev’ned was].
[UK]Beaumont & Fletcher Beggar’s Bush III i: Give her cold jelly, / To take up her belly, / And once a day swinge her again.
[UK] ‘Contentment’ in Ebsworth Merry Drollery Compleat (1875) I 161: Give me the Wench, that’s like a Tench, / In holding up her belly, / For to receive, and to conceive / The most heroick Jelly.
[UK]Rochester (attrib.) Sodom II ii: In tyme of termes she offers him her Arse, / Or with her mouth sucks jelly from his Tarse.
[UK] ‘Batchellors Answer’ Pepys Ballads (1987) V 196: For Maids Distempers we have Jelly Out-does all Physick.
in Frisky Songster 20: No one in my storehouse shall jelly drops spend.
[UK]‘Bumper Allnight. Esquire’ Honest Fellow 9: When e’er your husband lies o’er your belly, ma’am, / Take special care [...] / Lest you might stop up his river of jelly.
[UK]Peeping Tom (London) 13 52/3: ‘Quite liberal too, as to the pastry-cook’s jellies, for I believe no other jelly could be extracted from you!’.
[UK] ‘The Horrible Fright’ in Pearl 2 Aug. 32: He thrusts, and he pokes, and he enters your belly, / Till the horrible monster is melted to jelly.
[UK]Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
[UK]‘Ramrod’ Nocturnal Meeting 31: Let me feel your jelly [...] Deluge me or I’ll bite your balls off.
[US] in Randolph & Legman Ozark Folksongs and Folklore (1992) II 724: She can’t shoot jelly in the other girl’s belly, / ’Cause girls ain’t built that way.
[US]Blind Boy Fuller ‘Hungy Calf Blues’ 🎵 But I’m gonna save my jelly mama / Gonna bring it right home to you.
[US] in G. Legman Limerick (1953) 99: There was a young fellow named Kelly / Who preferred his wife’s ass to her belly. / He shrieked with delight / As he ploughed through the shite, / And filled up her hole with his jelly.
[US]B. Rodgers Queens’ Vernacular.

2. a buxom, pretty young woman [she ‘wobbles’].

[UK]Barrère & Leland Dict. of Sl., Jargon and Cant.
[UK]Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
[UK]H. Champion [perf. Harry Champion] ‘The Best That Money Can Buy’ 🎵 And oh she was such a love of a lump / I used to call her jelly because / She was so nice and plump.
[US]Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 132: jelly [...] a girl easily made.
[[US]‘John Eagle’ Hoodlums (2021) 71: [of a brothel madame] Her movements were heavy as she walked behind the bar. Jello in all the flavors].
[US]E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 243: jelly, jellyroll [...] 2. Attractive female.
[US]H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 218: Jelly, a good-looking woman.

3. (US black) the penis or the vagina.

[UK]poem in B. Ford (ed.) New Pelican Guide to Eng. Lit. I (rev. edn 1982) 588: I have a jelif of Godis sonde, / Withoutyn fyt it can stonde, / It can smytyn, and haght non honde; / Ryd yourself quat it may be.
[US]Odum & Johnson Negro Workaday Songs 112: Why I like Roberta so, / She rolls her jelly / Like she roll her dough.
[UK]S. Collins ‘New Salty Dog’ 🎵 She got good jelly / She sells it hot.
[US]Billy Eckstine [song title] Jelly, Jelly.
[US]Louis Jordan ‘Ration Blues’ 🎵 I like to wake up in the morning with my jelly by my side / Since rationing started baby, you just take your stuff and hide.
[US](con. 1930s) R. Wright Lawd Today 152: You talk like I don’t know how to whip a woman’s jelly [...] I can whip it till the butter comes.

4. (US black) sexual intercourse.

[US]L. Johnson [song title] You’ll Never Miss Your Jelly Till You’re Jelly Roller’s Gone.
[US]Louis Jordan ‘Ration Blues’ 🎵 I got to cut down on my jelly / It takes sugar to make it sweet.
[US]R.S. Gold ‘Vernacular of the Jazz World’ in AS XXXII:4 279: jelly. Sex.
[US]Trimble 5000 Adult Sex Words and Phrases.
[US]B. Jackson Get Your Ass in the Water (1974) 192: Shine O Shine, please save me, / I give you more jelly than your eyes can see.
[US]E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 150: Expressions like ‘I’m gonna get me some [...] jelly’ [...] reflect a sense of sweet-tasting sex, of nourishment, of being fed.

5. (US black) anything given free.

[US]Cab Calloway New Hepsters Dict. in Calloway (1976) 257: jelly (n.): anything free, on the house.
[US] ‘Jiver’s Bible’ in D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive.

6. (US black) male sexual prowess; sexuality; esp. in phr. it must be jelly, ’cause jam don’t shake like that

[US]Z.N. Hurston ‘Story in Harlem Sl.’ in Novels and Stories (1995) 1001: Well, he put it in the street that when it came to filling that long-felt need, sugar-curing the ladies’ feelings, he was in a class by himself and nobody knew his name, so he had to tell ’em. ‘It must be Jelly, ’cause jam don’t shake.’.

7. (UK drugs) temazepam; usu. in pl. as jellies [the gel-like content of the capsules].

[Scot]Glasgow Herald 2 June 6/6: [He] told the High Court in Glasgow...they were stopped by youths and one asked: ‘Do you want to buy jellies (the drug temazepam)?’ .
[Scot]I. Welsh Trainspotting 177: The state-sponsored addiction: substitute methadone for smack, the sickly jellies, three a day, for the hit.
[UK]N. Griffiths Grits 275: Wharrah do instead is, a eat tha temazepam jelly tharrah was plannin on neckin later.
[UK]K. Sampson Outlaws (ms.) 37: It’s too easy to cop out and take Prozac and that, jellies or whatever.
[NZ]D. Looser Boobslang [U. Canterbury D.Phil. thesis] 95/2: jelly n. a temazepam capsule.
[Scot]T. Black Gutted 228: ‘You sorted, pal?’ ‘What about some jellies?’.
[Scot]T. Black Ringer [ebook] n.p.: ‘Got any jellies, Stauner?’ It’s some wee ned I don’t even know, but he knows my handle.

8. see jellhead n.

In compounds

jelly-bag (n.)

1. the scrotum [bag n.1 (1a)].

[UK]Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

2. the vagina .

[UK]Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
[UK]Farmer Vocabula Amatoria (1966) 39: Bissac, m. The female pudendum; ‘the jelly-bag’.

3. (Aus.) term of abuse for a fat person [or fig. use of sense 2, e.g. a cunt n. (4)].

[Aus]K. Tennant Tell Morning This 19: ‘Before I’d let a fat jellybag and a dirty little rat stand over me, I’d call every rozzer in the force’.
jelly donut (n.)

(US black) a used sanitary pad or tampon.

[US]G. Hayward Corruption Officer [ebook] Ch. 31: The Captain looked and then jumped back and so did I. In her bag was a Jelly Doughnut aka a used Kotex.
jelly house (n.)

an inn (and/or brothel) frequented by prostitutes, criminals, rakes, etc.

Whitehall Eve. Post 3 Jan.-1 Apr. n.p.: The Royal Jelly House in Pall-Mall.
[UK]Midnight Spy (c.1929) 29: They entered a house, in Bridges-street, vulgarly denominated a Jelly-house [...] This scene, said [their guide] is a prelude to every kind of vice, folly, and debauchery that lust and liquor can possibly incite.
[UK]Gentleman’s Mag. Nov. 593/1: Jenny [...] was a Covent-garden-bred wench, who had lived at a jelly-house.
New London Spy [subtitle] [A] true picture of modern high and low life; from the splendid mansions in St. James’s to the subterraneous habitations of St. Giles’s, wherein are displayed the various scenes of Covent-Garden, and its environs, the theatres, Jelly-houses, Gaming-houses, Night-houses, Cottages, Masquerades, Mock-Masquerades, Public-gardens, and other places of entertainments.
17 Apr. [print title] The Jelly-House Maccaroni.
Complete Modern London Spy 76: A Jelly-House / This, said Mr Ambler, is one of those places whither effeminate beaux sometimes resort of a morning, and rakes and girls of the town [etc] .
Stranger’s Guide n.p.: Procuresses […] are to be met with at the jelly-houses, milliners, perfume-shops.
jelly jewellery (n.)

ejaculated semen, covering the face and throat of one’s partner.

[UK]Roger’s Profanisaurus 3 in Viz 98 Oct. 18: jelly jewellery n. The earrings, nose-studs, fancy spectacles and other facial adornments a lucky lady sometimes receives when her partner had intended to give her a pearl necklace.
[UK]P. Meditzy ‘A Day In The Life Of...’ 29 Apr. 🌐 Instead of firing my ‘baby gravy’ over her belly and tits due to my excitement I ended up giving her a ‘pearl necklace’ and other ‘jelly jewellery’ to match.
jelly sandwich (n.)

(US black) a sanitary towel.

[US]E. Folb Runnin’ Down Some Lines 157: There are also a variety of graphic expressions to characterize sanitary napkins – rag, diaper, jellyroll, jelly sandwich.
jelly snatchers (n.)

(US black) the hands.

[Ire]Andrews & Dickens Big House 25: He got his jelly-snatchers on some ancient manuscripts.

In phrases

it must be jelly, ’cause jam don’t shake like that (also it must be gookum…, they must be jelly-beans ’cause jam-beans don’t shake like that )

(US black) a phr. used between males to express their appreciation of an especially attractive female.

Lib. Congress Catalog of Copyright Entries 1602/2: It must be jelly cause jam don’t shake like that; by George Williams and J.C. MacGregor [...] Sept. 1 1942.
[US]Mad mag. Dec.–Jan. 24: It must be gookum, ’cause jam don’t shake like that .
[US]Mad mag. Sept. 4: They must be jelly-beans ’cause jam-beans don’t shake like that.
[US]J. Thompson ‘Hell’ in Fireworks (1988) 190: The ol’ eighty-eighty [...] a-rockin’ with the glorious tidings that ‘It Must Be Jelly, ’Cause Jam Don’t Shake Like That’.
Bambi and Friends No.1 [comic strip] Hmmm...(It must be jelly ’cause jam don’t shake like that).
[US]‘Touré’ Portable Promised Land (ms.) 154: We Words. My Favorite Things [...] Must be jelly cuz jam doan shake like dat!

SE in slang uses

In compounds

jelly bean

see separate entries .

jelly-bellied (adj.) [jelly belly ]

1. fat.

[UK]Kipling ‘The Flag of Their Country’ in Complete Stalky & Co. (1987) 221: I was in the study, doin’ a simply lovely poem about the Jelly-bellied Flag-flapper.
[US]Out West 27-8 255: Now, where's that jelly-bellied Dutch cook gone to?
E.H. Davis Princess Cecilia 22: Tewfik, huge and jelly-bellied, bore down on them with wrath in his eye.
W.D. Brownrigg Unexpected 20: I admit that I did call Captain a goggle- eyed, jelly-bellied bastard.

2. (Aus./US, also jelly-belly) cowardly.

[UK]Windsor Mag. 88 508: The brave jingle their medals as they sink into armchairs at the club, while the jelly-bellied have soft white arms to comfort them.
J. Millard Thunderbolt and Lightfoot 100: You gettin’ jelly-belly over the deal you promoted your own self? [HDAS].
jelly belly (n.)

1. a fat person; also attrib.

[UK]Era (London) 14 Nov. 4/1: Them waz my thorts, Guvnor, until they waz broken in upon by jelly belly Morris.
[UK]Leaves from Diary of Celebrated Burglar 92/1: When we emerged into open daylight there was fat old jelly belly still in the arms of Morpheus.
[UK]Chelmsford Chron. 18 Dec. 6/6: I was driving my cart in Leyton when the defendant Grist came behind me and called me ‘— old jellybelly’.
[UK]Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.
[UK]W.S. Maugham Liza of Lambeth (1966) 6: You jolly well dry up, old jelly-belly.
[US]S.F. Call 9 Nov. 4/6: You’re a good fellow, old jelly-belly.
[US]J. London Valley of the Moon (1914) 196: Old Jelly Belly’s got three bullet holes in him, but he ain’t goin’ to die.
Menorah Mag. Apr. 464: A blond mustache, a hairless head, / A jelly belly, always fed. / Think kindly of our little paunches.
[US]Harper’s Mag. 179 n.p.: We called him Slob, or Jelly-Belly. Because, you see, poor Jo was the local fat boy.

2. (Aus./US) a coward.

A. Kemp Eat of Me, I Am the Savior 90: There were [...] a jelly-belly or two who had secretly admired Nicholas in private while he had damned him in public [HDAS].
[UK]Partridge DSUE (8th edn) 615: since ca. 1935.
jelly-date (n.)

see separate entry .

jellyfish

see separate entries .

jelly roll/roller

see separate entries .

In phrases

bowl of jelly (n.) (also can of jelly)

(US) a notably fat person.

[US]A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks 18/2: Can of jelly, a fat belly.
Minnesota Daily (U. Minn.) 🌐 27 Sept. When he hurried, his stomach was like a bowl of jelly – his fat was like waves going back and forth.