Source — Wiktionary, "gezelligheid" (Dutch only)
- Title: gezelligheid
- Author: unattributed (Wiktionary community)
- Publication: English Wiktionary (Dutch-language entry section only)
- URL: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/gezelligheid
- Date: page last edited 4 May 2026 per the page's own footer
- Accessed: 2026-09-02
- Type: tertiary/lexicographic — neutral, narrow entry.
- Access method note: fetched directly (
curlwith a browser user agent, tag-stripped) and read in full.
Extract
This page has no English section at all — a directly-checked negative, structurally the mirror image of gezellig the adjective (which does have an English entry; see wiktionary-gezellig.md). The only content is the Dutch entry: gezelligheid, a feminine noun (plural gezelligheden, diminutive gezelligheidje), from Middle Dutch gesellicheit (gezellig + -heid), glossed as "the state or fact of being cosy; Gemütlichkeit, coziness; conviviality." Further reading cited: the official Dutch-language spelling word list (Woordenlijst Nederlandse Taal, Nederlandse Taalunie) — a primary Dutch-language reference this project has not itself read.
This is the reverse split from lagom, where the English loanword is the noun (a Swedish adjective/adverb was borrowed into English as a noun) while here the English loanword is the adjective (gezellig itself) and the corresponding Dutch noun (gezelligheid) has not been separately borrowed into English at all, despite being the more common English-language label for the general concept in most popular writing this project found (article titles, listicle headers, etc. overwhelmingly use "gezelligheid" as the abstract-noun name for the phenomenon, while quoting "gezellig" as the adjective people actually say) — a genuine mismatch between which of the two source-language forms English popular writing prefers to talk about and which one has actually been lexicalized by a dictionary.
Gaps
- Merriam-Webster was directly checked this session for "gezelligheid" as well as "gezellig" and returned the same HTTP 404 (no entry) for both. The OED was not checked for either form (standing project-wide OED-access fence).