gingerly
Language: English
Part of speech: adv
Pronunciation: ipa: /ˈdʒɪn(d)ʒəli/
ipa: /ˈd͡ʒɪnd͡ʒɚli/
Forms: form: more gingerly
form: most gingerly
Etymology: The second element is -ly; the first element may be Anglo-Norman gençur or Old French gençor, gensor, comparative forms (also attested as positives) of gent (“beautiful, noble, pleasant, courteous”). The Oxford English Dictionary notes, however, that there is a gap of a few centuries between the last appearance of gençor, etc., and the first appearance of gingerly.
The adjective is derived from the adverb, possibly because -ly is also a suffix forming adjectives.
Senses: examples: text: He placed the glass jar gingerly on the concrete step.
text: In an other corner, Mistris Minx, a marchants wife, that will eate no cherries, forsooth, but when they are at twentie shillings a pound, that lookes as simperingly as if she were besmeard, and iets it as gingerly as if she were dancing the canaries, […]
ref: 1592, Thomas Nash[e], Pierce Penilesse His Supplication to the Deuill. […], London: […] [John Charlewood for] Richard Ihones, […], →OCLC:
text: [E]nter you the chambers peaceably, locke the dores gingerly, looke vpon your vviues wofully, but vpon the euill-doers, moſt vvickedly.
ref: 1604 (first performance), Tho[mas] Dekker; Iohn Webster [i.e., John Webster], West-ward Hoe. […], London: […] [William Jaggard], and to be sold by Iohn Hodgets […], published 1607, →OCLC, Act V:
text: Prithee, gentle officer, / Handle me gingerly, or I fall to pieces, / Before I can plead mine.
ref: 1624 November 3 (first performance), Philip Massinger, “The Parliament of Love”, in W[illiam] Gifford, editor, The Plays of Philip Massinger, […], volume II, London: […] G[eorge] and W[illiam] Nicol; […] by W[illiam] Bulmer and Co. […], published 1805, →OCLC, Act V, scene i, page 307:
text: […] Sir W. Pen made a formal speech in answer to a question of the King's, whether the lying of the sunk ships in the river would spoil the river. But, Lord! how gingerly he answered it, and with a deal of do that he did not know whether it would be safe as to the enemy to have them taken up, but that doubtless it would be better for the river to have them taken up.
ref: 1667 July 13 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Samuel Pepys, Mynors Bright, transcriber, “July 3rd, 1667”, in Henry B[enjamin] Wheatley, editor, The Diary of Samuel Pepys […], volume VII, London: George Bell & Sons […]; Cambridge: Deighton Bell & Co., published 1896, →OCLC, page 5:
text: My mother was going very gingerly in the dark along the paſſage which led to the parlour, as my uncle Toby pronounced the word wife.
ref: 1762, [Laurence Sterne], chapter V, in The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, volume V, London: […] T. Becket and P. A. Dehondt, […], →OCLC, page 37:
text: Then of a sudden the rope was still—the stone had caught at the very edge. Gingerly the ape-man clambered up the frail rope.
ref: 1913, Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Return of Tarzan, New York: Ballantine Books, published 1963, page 208:
text: Purchasing a snowplow transforms Homer [Simpson] into a new man. Mr. Burns' laziest employee suddenly becomes an ambitious self-starter who buys ad time on local television at 3:17 A.M^([sic]) (prime viewing hours, Homer gingerly volunteers, for everyone from alcoholics to the unemployable to garden-variety angry loners) and makes a homemade commercial costarring his family.
ref: 2012 June 3, Nathan Rabin, “The Simpsons (Classic): ‘Mr. Plow’”, in The A.V. Club, archived from the original on 27 Oct 2020:
text: [Martin Luther] King [Jr.] was later said to have been within a sneeze or a jolt of extinction. Were it not for the pair of cops who gingerly carried him from Blumstein’s department store and the pair of surgeons who performed lifesaving surgery at Harlem Hospital there would have been no "I Have a Dream" speech and likely no national holiday honoring him.
ref: 2014 January 20, Michael Daly, “The Black and White Men who Saved Martin Luther King’s Life”, in The Daily Beast, published 14 April 2017 (update), archived from the original on 18 Jan 2021:
text: When we got there and went to our room he undressed and shut off the light as I was still doing so, and I got into bed gingerly, facing his turned back, and reached out to touch him.
ref: 2021, Megan Nolan, Acts of Desperation, Random House, →ISBN:
synonyms: word: ginger
word: tentatively
word: warily
glosses: In a cautious and delicate manner; (very) carefully or cautiously.
examples: text: Oh! ſhe lookes ſo ſugredly, ſo ſimpringly, ſo gingerly, ſo amarouſly, ſo amiably. […] [She] is ſuch an intycing ſhee-vvitch, carrying the charmes of your Ievvels about her. Oh!
ref: 1604 (first performance), Tho[mas] Dekker; Iohn Webster [i.e., John Webster], West-ward Hoe. […], London: […] [William Jaggard], and to be sold by Iohn Hodgets […], published 1607, →OCLC, Act II:
glosses: Chiefly of dancing or walking: done with small, dainty steps; daintily; also, with excessive delicacy; affectedly, mincingly.
Derived terms: word: ginger
Related terms: gingerish
gingerness