Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adverb With great care or delicacy; cautiously.
- adjective Cautious; careful.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Softly; delicately; cautiously; mincingly; daintily: used especially with reference to manner of walking or handling.
- Cautious; mincing; dainty.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adverb Cautiously; timidly; fastidiously; daintily.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adverb
Gently ; in adelicate orcautious manner. - adjective dated
Ginger .
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective with extreme care or delicacy
- adverb in a gingerly manner
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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New Americans tested the label gingerly, often choosing to embrace multiple cultures.
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Geoff Nunberg has a post at Language Log on the word gingerly: a NY Times story on Falluja included the statement "it was a gingerly first step," which pleased him by its proper use of gingerly as an adjective thanks to Tim May for catching my original misstatement!
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Geoff Nunberg has a post at Language Log on the word gingerly: a NY Times story on Falluja included the statement "it was a gingerly first step," which provoked his automatic resistance.
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He rose gingerly from the cart - two strokes and a broken hip in recent years make it hard for him to walk.
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He pronounced the word gingerly, distastefully, as if it were a curious, unwonted one.
The Lee Shore Rose Macaulay 1919
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How can such dissimulation (I use that term gingerly) then be blamed on the ones being taught?
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"But I saw that fiction--he pronounced the word gingerly, as though it were something dangerous--is perhaps not, as I had thought, merely an inducement to idleness and wicked fancy.
A Breath of Snow and Ashes Gabaldon, Diana 2005
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But in fact I use that word gingerly the reader is being manipulated.
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I have this notion that "gingerly" shouldn't be used as an adverb, as in, "she hugged the child gingerly," because there's no corresponding adjective "ginger."
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I'll concede that "gingerly" has been used as an adverb for 400 years, and nobody's ever complained about it before.
sionnach commented on the word gingerly
Peculiarly, this word is both an adjective and an adverb.
November 4, 2007
uselessness commented on the word gingerly
Sounds British. "Agnes was a gingerly gal with milky-white hands and a face like cherry velvet."
November 6, 2007