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gingerly

adverb · adjective

Form of ginger , adverb of ginger.

Simple meaning

In a cautious and delicate way.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

jinjerlee

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈdʒɪndʒɚli

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

adverb

  1. In a cautious and delicate manner; (very) carefully or cautiously.

  2. In a gingerly manner

    “Gingerly I raised the edge of the blanket.”

adjective

  1. Often of movements: very careful, cautious, or delicate.

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C2 · Proficient (estimated)
Frequency
Rare

More ways to use gingerly

  • “Gingerly I raised the edge of the blanket.”adverb

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

rather gingerlygingerly touched

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • gingernounBase word

    Perennial plants having thick branching aromatic rhizomes and leafy reedlike stems.

More about this wordSynonyms, forms, origin

Synonyms

Sense: often of movements

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.