Gelid first appeared in English late in the 16th century, coming to our language from Latin gelidus, which ultimately derives from the noun gelu, meaning “frost” or “cold.” (The noun gelatin, which can refer to an edible jelly that undergoes a cooling process as part of its formation, comes from a related Latin word: gelare, meaning “to freeze.”) Gelid is used to describe anything of extremely cold temperature (as in “the gelid waters of the Arctic Ocean”), but the word can also be used figuratively to describe a person with a cold demeanor (as in “the criminal’s gelid stare”).
Had FIGHT and LINES for the bottom two and a couple of other bad guesses going on, but even when I deleted them and tried to start afresh, nothing was talking hold. So I searched for the tree answer and everything then fell into place.
Whizzed through the CW, but had HERMS (instead of HELMS, cos I’d misread the clue and didn’t know the religious one straight off). Got the PW fairly early on, but the above error meant it didn’t stop the clock, so I faffed trying other PWs until I reviewed the CW and realised.
Spent at least a minute wondering why I didn’t have it only to clock I had written it HELLO not HALLO and been thinking LEDEN was ‘leaden’ which worked just about with the clue
