Extremely cold, icy.The origin of gelid is Latin gelidus which means very cold (see Online Etymology Dictionary). It is a rare word, about 1 in 39,000,000 per Google Ngram viewer (in comparison "icy" is about 1 in 282,000, "frigid" about 1 in 1,000,000 and "cold" a whopping 1 in 15.000).
So, why use "gelid"? One reason is to avoid using "very" or "extremely" - so, rather than "very cold" we can use "gelid". "Frigid" also means "very cold" but I think some of the connotations are different. In particular, "frigid" can mean "extremely uninterested in sex" which "gelid" cannot. And "gelid" has the connotation of "almost frozen".
I read gelid in Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson.
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