Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- adv. With great care or delicacy; cautiously.
- adj. Cautious; careful.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- Softly; delicately; cautiously; mincingly; daintily: used especially with reference to manner of walking or handling.
- Cautious; mincing; dainty.
Wiktionary
GNU Webster's 1913
- adv. Cautiously; timidly; fastidiously; daintily.
WordNet 3.0
- adj. with extreme care or delicacy
- adv. in a gingerly manner
Etymologies
- (1510) Maybe from Old French gensor, comparative of gent ("nice, kind, pretty"), from Latin gentius ("well-born") (Wiktionary)
- Possibly alteration of obsolete French gensor, delicate, from Old French, comparative of gent, gentle; see gent1. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“New Americans tested the label gingerly, often choosing to embrace multiple cultures.”
“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!”
“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.”
“He rose gingerly from the cart - two strokes and a broken hip in recent years make it hard for him to walk.”
“He pronounced the word gingerly, distastefully, as if it were a curious, unwonted one.”
“How can such dissimulation (I use that term gingerly) then be blamed on the ones being taught?”
“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.”
“But in fact I use that word gingerly the reader is being manipulated.”
“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.”
“I'll concede that "gingerly" has been used as an adverb for 400 years, and nobody's ever complained about it before.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘gingerly’.
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GRE Barrons Wordlist
A complete Barron's Wordlist for GRE preparation. Your online flashcard replacement.
abase, abash, abate, abbreviate, abdicate, aberrant, aberration, abet, abeyance, abhor, abject, abjure and 4087 more...
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The Sog Collection
My big word list.
chaos, flaccid, empirical, flotsam, cacophony, grumble, assuage, awe, romance, mortality, coalesce, fortuitous and 3282 more...
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zzyyxx's Words
plethora, drout, functional, rye, wring, doubt, cognative, weird, gnaw, surcease, rend, languish and 438 more...
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Misc. Words.
Words I like to use, words I like but may forget.
corrosion, astonish, solace, ferment, continuum, kinesthetic, permeate, repose, caprice, cardinal, discourse, surrender and 610 more...
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cloudjuice's Words
schadenfreude, sordid, promulgate, erratic, erroneous, amalgamate, sesquipedalian, incongruous, psychosis, etymology, simulacrum, serendipity and 988 more...
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List of words to expand my vocabulary
does what it says on the tin, and is severely needed.
indolent, insolent, idly, divulge, tattle, benign, roguish, daintily, idle, dowdy, sordid, wanton and 242 more...
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sionnach's Words
contumely, fomite, holmgang, poltroon, eleemosynary, obsidian, nugatory, grindcore, felch, recrudescent, pyx, parenteral and 3271 more...
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stpeter's Words
abase, abasement, abashed, abdicate, aberrant, abeyance, abhor, abhorrent, abide, abject, ablation, abnegation and 3536 more...
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From Book - SAT & College Dictionary ...
ebb, exotic, immure, abeyance, panegyric, debonair, protege, dissipate, frantic, penitent, abject, edify and 871 more...
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Tolland's list
Those I've come across and try to keep fresh within my mind.
clandestine, dysphoric, indictive, vigil, fractious, assiduous, indefatigable, ubiquitous, insidious, paroicous, aplomb, sangfroid and 654 more...
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Reading Random
Got unknown words randomly
delinquency, modicum, dissuade, incendiary, destitute, lachrymose, plight, ruse, empirical, pedantic, demography, giggle and 444 more...
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harveythechainsaw's Words
lickspittle, syllogism, redounds, boffo, maw, flibbertigibbet, elan, phalanx, plinth, wonk, janjaweed, madreporic and 142 more...
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GRE
partisan, erudite, insular, cosmopolitan, imperturbable, facetious, recapitulate, repudiate, inscrutable, baseness, bailiwick, freeloader and 315 more...
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New Words
smarmy, purge, linger, shimmer, fiercely, frantically, shove, grunt, errand, clench, wriggle, squeeze and 168 more...
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christy927's list
...all my favorite words...
chrysalis, mahogany, indigo, elysian, rubenesque, cataclysmic, scythe, archaic, gaelic, trollop, sycamore, canopy and 279 more...
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gre2
aberrant, aboveboard, abrasive, abstemious, acme, admonish, affable, affluent, alacrity, allegory, alleviate, amalgam and 1781 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for gingerly.
uselessness Sounds British. "Agnes was a gingerly gal with milky-white hands and a face like cherry velvet." Nov 5, 2007
sionnach Peculiarly, this word is both an adjective and an adverb. Nov 4, 2007