Literal translation
to freeze one's almonds
Meaning
to be freezing cold
Explanation
This expression means to be freezing cold, and is said exclusively by men, which clearly orients the underlying image. The verb gela means to freeze, and amendoun, not attested on its own in our dictionaries, likely relates to amendo or amelo, meaning almond, in a diminutive or popular plural form. The almond, through its oval shape, serves here, as in several languages, as a picturesque euphemism for the testicles, so that to freeze one's almonds amounts to saying, discreetly yet transparently for anyone who knows the code, that one feels sharp cold in one's intimate parts, a familiar and vivid way of saying it is bitterly cold. This reading remains a reasonable inference from the attested overall meaning and from the note that the expression is reserved for men, without amounting to a certain etymology of the word amendoun itself. The register is very familiar, almost bawdy, used among men to comment humorously on a particularly low temperature, notably outdoors. The expression illustrates the Provençal taste for comic bodily euphemism applied to extreme physical sensations.