gingery
English edit
Etymology edit
Adjective edit
gingery (comparative more gingery, superlative most gingery)
- Somewhat reddish or reddish-brown in colour (especially of hair or skin colouring).
- gingery hair / freckles; the gingery fur of a fox
- 1852 March – 1853 September, Charles Dickens, “chapter 19”, in Bleak House, London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1853, →OCLC:
- The very learned gentleman […] has cooled the natural heat of his gingery complexion in pools and fountains of law […]
- 1898, Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Club-Footed Grocer”, in Round the Fire Stories[1], London: Smith, Elder & Co., published 1908, page 212:
- He was a small, thick man, with a great rounded, bald head and one thin border of gingery curls.
- 1972, Norma Klein, chapter 7, in Mom, the Wolf Man and Me[2], New York: Avon, page 75:
- He had bright red hair, not just gingery like Andrew’s […]
- Having reddish-brown hair. (of a person)
- 1899, Joseph Conrad, chapter 2, in Heart of Darkness[3]:
- The red-haired pilgrim was beside himself with the thought that at least this poor Kurtz had been properly revenged. […] He positively danced, the bloodthirsty little gingery beggar.
- Having a flavour or aroma of the spice ginger; containing that spice.
- a gingery broth / stir-fry
- 2005, Truman Capote, chapter 6, in Summer Crossing, New York: Random House:
- Nostalgic, gingery hints of Spanish geranium wafted in her mother’s room […]
- (dated) Energetic, vigorous, lively, peppy, zippy.
- 1909 March 29, Fred Tenney, “Giants Take Last Game from Dallas”, in New York Times[4]:
- The boys have made themselves very popular with the fans here, because a good, gingery gaffe is played all the time, regardless of the score.
- 1911 August 19, Kentucky Irish American[5], Louisville, Kentucky:
- The recent showing of the locals has been a big disappointment to the fans, the team playing loosely, and the gingery coaching and hustling of Hulswitt has been the only redeeming feature.
- 1912, P. R. Bennett, “Patience on a Throne” in Ducdame: A Book of Verses, London: Elliot Stock, p. 44,[6]
- The man who reads his history of any clime or age
- Finds characters of potentates disfiguring each page,
- So touchy and so gingery
- That every little injury
- Will send them flying off into a rage.
- 1994, John Malcolm, chapter 18, in Hung Over[7], New York: St. Martin’s Press, page 130:
- The door to the street opened and Nobby himself came striding in, all gingery action and alertness, like an Airedale after a dustman.
- (US, dated) Ginger, inhibited, cautious.
- 1857, Thomas Mayne Reid, chapter 93, in The War-Trail[8], New York: De Witt, page 455:
- I walked slowly, and with an assumed air of careless indifference. I counterfeited the Comanche walk—not that bold free port—the magnificent and inimitable stride, so characteristic of Chippewa and Shawano, of Huron and Iroquois—but the shuffling gingery step of an English jockey; for such in reality is the gait of the Comanche Indian when afoot.
- 1919, H. L. Mencken, “George Ade”, in Prejudices: First Series[9], NY: Knopf, page 115:
- They are unanimously shy of Ade in their horn-books for sophomores, and they are gingery in their praise of him in their innumerable review articles.