gingerbread
Americannoun
-
a type of cake flavored with ginger and molasses.
-
a rolled cookie similarly flavored, often cut in fanciful shapes, and sometimes frosted.
-
elaborate, gaudy, or superfluous architectural ornamentation.
a series of gables embellished with gingerbread.
adjective
noun
-
a moist brown cake, flavoured with ginger and treacle or syrup
-
-
a rolled biscuit, similarly flavoured, cut into various shapes and sometimes covered with icing
-
( as modifier )
gingerbread man
-
-
-
an elaborate but unsubstantial ornamentation
-
( as modifier )
gingerbread style of architecture
-
Other Word Forms
- gingerbready adjective
Etymology
Origin of gingerbread
1250–1300; Middle English gingebreed (influenced by breed bread), variant of gingebrad, -brat ginger paste < Old French gingembras, -brat preserved ginger < Medieval Latin *gingi ( m ) brātum a medicinal preparation (neuter past participle), derivative of Latin gingiber ginger
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
It was starched as stiff as a gingerbread man.
From Literature
He hadn’t eaten gingerbread since his sister had read that one to him.
From Literature
Think gingerbread men, only soft, chubby, and less fearful.
From Salon
But she only fell in love with the brand when she saw a gingerbread house plushie on the Chinese social media app RedNote.
From BBC
But in the meantime, seasonal enthusiasm for the house could be satisfied by a gingerbread facsimile thereof that was open to the public in Hollywood.
From MarketWatch
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
