gingerbread
pronunciation
How to pronounce gingerbread in British English:
UK [ˈdʒɪndʒəbred]
How to pronounce gingerbread in American English:
US [ˈdʒɪndʒərbred]
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- Noun:
- cake flavored with ginger
Word Origin
- gingerbread
- gingerbread: [13] The idea that gingerbread does not much resemble bread is entirely justified by the word’s history. For originally it was gingebras (a borrowing from Old French), and it meant ‘preserved ginger’. By the mid-14th century, by the process known as folk etymology (the substitution of a more for a less familiar form), -bread had begun to replace -bras, and it was only a matter of time (the early 15th century, apparently) before sense followed form. The expression ‘take the gilt off the gingerbread’ (not recorded before the late 19th century) comes from the fact that formerly gingerbread was often decorated with gold leaf.
- gingerbread (n.)
- late 13c., gingerbrar, "preserved ginger," from Old French ginginbrat "ginger preserve," from Medieval Latin gingimbratus "gingered," from gingiber (see ginger). The ending changed by folk etymology to -brede "bread," a formation attested by mid-14c. Meaning "sweet cake spiced with ginger" is from 15c. Figurative use, indicating anything considered showy and insubstantial, is from c. 1600. Sense of "fussy decoration on a house" is first recorded 1757; gingerbread-work (1748) was a sailor's term for carved decoration on a ship. Gingerbread-man as a confection is from 1850; the rhyme ("The Chase of the Gingerbread Man," by Ella M. White) is from 1898.
Example
- 1. Gingerbread man came close to the fox 's ear .
- 2. Then gingerbread man met a pig .
- 3. Soon gingerbread man met a bear .
- 4. But naver can 't win by locking koreans inside the gingerbread house .
- 5. Zuckersucht produces about one million gingerbread hearts for very oktoberfest season .