ginger
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈdʒɪndʒə/
ipa: /ˈd͡ʒɪnd͡ʒɚ/
rhymes: -ɪndʒə(ɹ)
other: /ˈɡɪŋə/
Forms: form: more ginger
form: gingerer
form: most ginger
form: gingerest
Etymology: Back-formation from gingerly (adverb).
Senses: examples: text: He’s going to get an interview about ten o’clock, making the old gentleman predict war, and we’ll get out the gingerest kind of a special on the strength of it!
ref: 1899 April 1, Richard Stillman Powell [pseudonym; Ralph Henry Barbour], “The President and Tom Collins”, in The Saturday Evening Post, volume 171, number 40, Philadelphia, Pa.: The Curtis Publishing Company, →ISSN, page 626, column 2:
text: Wherefore, although for my own car I want the “gingerest” possible engine, I realise that it has shortcomings for the general market and I would commend to designers the ideal of an engine that shall be as “woolly” as possible, so long as its artificially restricted dimensions shall not cause its owner to find himself unable to tackle respectable gradients.
ref: 1921 January 29, W. Harold Johnson, “[The Automobile World.] My Ideal Small Car Specification”, in Country Life: The Journal for All Interested in Country Life & Country Pursuits, volume XLIX, number 1277, London, page lxvi, column 1:
text: “Coney Island” is by far the best picture the Hip has had. That says very little for a house that has held the worst, but this F. B. O. [Film Booking Offices] will do business this week for the Hip because it more than makes good under one of the gingerest of names. And a name that should draw by itself.
ref: 1928 February 15, “Coney Island”, in Variety, volume XC, number 5, New York, N.Y.: Variety, Inc., →ISSN, page 27, column 3:
text: They, the Rabbis, for better or for worse, were very ginger with this question.
ref: 2006, John W. McGinley, About the King’s Choice to Build His Palace Right on Top of a Dunghill: (Or, How to Conceptualize Jewishly), Lincoln, Neb.: iUniverse, →ISBN, page 540:
text: After a very ginger landing, everyone aboard was able to see up close how lucky they had been to reach base.
ref: 2007, Flypast:
text: Moving very slowly, taking extremely ginger steps, the woman felt beads of sweat dripping down from her body.
ref: 2009, Franklin Newman, The Prophetess of Bromfryel: The Knights of Callistor, page 509:
text: My face hurt like a son of a bitch every time I placed even the gingerest of fingertips on it, but from what I could see from my reflection in the broad blade of my letter opener, it still hadn’t swollen.
ref: 2011, Craig Russell, chapter 5, in The Deep Dark Sleep (Lennox; 3), London: Quercus, →ISBN, page 106:
text: To walk, each crutch he kinda hopped forward a little and used his torso to drag his legs after, using them as the gingerest element of a tripod.
ref: 2013, T. D. Badyna, chapter 4, in Flick, Whistle-Bit Books, →ISBN, page 44:
text: Silence settles once more between us all, filled only by the gingerest of clinks of forks reluctantly hovering over flesh.
ref: 2015, James Hannah, “Rib”, in The A to Z of You and Me, London: Black Swan, Transworld Publishers, →ISBN, page 221:
synonyms: gingerish
gingerly
glosses: Very careful or cautious; also, delicate, sensitive.
Derived terms: word: gingerish
alt: one etymology
word: gingerness
Related terms: gingerliness
gingerly