There are three related words: Geld as used in Dane Geld, meaning treasure; geld as in horse-castration; and guild. Two of them are closely related in derivation! Guess which.

guild - c.1230, yilde (spelling later infl. by O.N. gildi), a semantic fusion of O.E. gegyld "guild" and gild, gyld "payment, tribute, compensation," from P.Gmc. *gelth- "pay" (cf. O.Fris. geld "money," O.S. geld "payment, sacrifice, reward," O.H.G. gelt "payment, tribute"). The connecting sense is of a tribute or payment to join a protective or trade society. But some see the root in its alternate sense of "sacrifice," as if in worship, and see the word as meaning a combination for religious purposes, either Christian or pagan. The Anglo-Saxon guilds had a strong religious component; they were burial societies that paid for masses for the souls of deceased members as well as paying fines in cases of justified crime.

geld (n.) - "royal tax in Medieval England," O.E. gield "payment, tribute" (cf. M.H.G. gelt "payment, contribution," Ger. geld "money," O.N. gjald "payment," Goth. gild "tribute, tax"), from PIE base of yield (q.v.).


geld (v.) - "to castrate," c.1300, from O.N. gelda "castrate," from geldr "barren," from P.Gmc. *galdu- (cf. O.H.G. galt "barren," said of a cow). The noun gelding (1296) is from O.N. geldingr.

from here.

A