gingerly
adjEtymology 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.
1
Often of movements: very careful, cautious, or delicate.
- We can honestly commend the Atlantic Monthly as the most able and spirited of American periodicals, at the present time, and we like it, moreover, because it dares have opinions and to express them in unmistakable terms, on subjects which when referred to at all, by most of the current magazines, are mentioned in the gingerliest namby-pamby style of common place neutrality.1857 November 30, “The Atlantic Monthly”, in Wisconsin Daily State Journal, volume VI, number 366, Madison, Wis., →OCLC, page [2], column 3:
- But, ther's somethin' in the very look and voice of Jeems Strebling, even in his gingerly walk, that riles all the black drop in me.1867, R[ebecca] H[arding] Davis, “The Valley of the Shadow”, in Waiting for the Verdict, New York, N.Y.: Sheldon & Company, published 1868, →OCLC, page 174:
4 more examples
- [P]enetrating cautiously into dark cellars, sallying with gingerly tread to the garden, now leaf-strewn by the autumn winds, […]1886 May, Thomas Hardy, chapter XXII, in The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Man of Character. […], volume II, London: Smith, Elder & Co., […], →OCLC, page 301:
- During the extra session there were few crimes in the decalogue of which we were not accused, and all because of our old-fashioned tariff views and our quaint, blunt way of expressing them. While this treatment had its toughening effects, none the less did the Landmark’s icy rebuke mortify and silence us. We return to the painful subject in the gingerliest way imaginable, our mood far from affirmative, but interrogatory from first to last.1909 October 18, “Querying ‘Worse’”, in The Times-Dispatch, number 18,047, Richmond, Va., →ISSN, →OCLC, page 4, column 2:
- The down "Atlantic Coast Express", headed by Pacific No. 35020 Bibby Line, passes the scene of operations at a gingerly 10 m.p.h.1961 March, Trains Illustrated, London: Ian Allan Publishing, →ISSN, →OCLC, image caption, page 185:
- Several gingerly taps on her console fired clusters of modified probes into the maelstrom of the gas giant’s atmosphere.2012, David [Alan] Mack, chapter 28, in Persistence of Memory (Star Trek: The Next Generation; Cold Equations; book 1), New York, N.Y.: Pocket Books, →ISBN, part 3 (Elegy):
2
Obsolete Often of a person or the way they move: dainty, delicate; also, excessively delicate; affected, mincing.
- All yᵉ rest of my trimmest, tricksiest, gingerliest ioyes, / But very tædious and most odious toyes?1573 September, Gabriel Harvey, “The Schollars Loove, or Reconcilement of Contraryes”, in Edward John Long Scott, editor, Letter-Book of Gabriel Harvey, A.D. 1573–1580. […] ([Camden Society Publications] New Series; XXXIII), Westminster: […] [F]or the Camden Society […] by Nichols and Sons, […], →OCLC, page 115:
- Derived terms
- gingerliness