Gingerly means very cautiously, as if afraid of hurting something. Move gingerly.
It has nothing to do with the spice and probably comes from an old French word for delicate. To walk gingerly is what anybody does on ice or with a hurt back.
1adverbgingerlyVery cautiously, as if afraid of hurting something.
“He lifted the box gingerly and it fell apart anyway.”
gingerly is a manner.
The ending is -ly; the first part may come from Old French gensor, delicate, and not from ginger at all.
Proto-Indo-European
*ǵenh₁-
Old French
gençor
Anglo-Norman
gençur
English, today
gingerly
Built from
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.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA