In the introductory part of the article, the author discusses Slovak dial. pomidlo ‘plum jam; tree gum’ (Šariš region, north‑east Slovakia) which, in his opinion, is a corruption of an original * povidlo. It is not clear whether the Slovak word is a native cognate of Polish powidła ‘sort of jam (made mostly from plums)’ and Czech povidla ‘id.’; it might also be a local loanword of Polish origin. The author subsequently gives a survey of the existing attempts at etymological interpretation of the aforementioned Polish and Czech lexemes. According to W. Boryś, they go back to * povidlo as an original nomen instrumenti derived from * po‑viti (prefixal derivative of Proto‑Slavic * viti ‘twist, wind’, probably also used to denote the circular movements made with a spoon, etc. while constantly stirring the boiling fruit mass); the original meaning should thus be reconstructed as ‘jam made with the use of a * povidlo (stirring instrument)’. The author of the present study interprets the proto‑form * povidlo as a nomen actionis (i.e., ‘the action of stirring’) which underwent a further semantic shift ‘nomen actionis’ > ‘nomen acti (nomen resultati)’, i.e. ‘(the action of) stirring’ > ‘jam (made by stirring the fruit mass)’; cf. Russian varen'e ‘preserve, jam, confiture’ < ‘(the action of) cooking’.