gingerbread
Meanings
Plural: gingerbreads
Noun
- cake flavored with ginger
- A type of cake whose main flavoring is ginger.
- Something ersatz; something showy but insubstantial.
- A flamboyant Victorian-era architectural style.
Verb
- To decorate or embellish in an ornate or intricate way.
Origin / Etymology
From Middle English gyngebred, gyngebrede, from Old French gingembras, gingimbrat (“preserved ginger”), from Medieval Latin *gingimbrātus (“gingered”, presumably referring to ginger that perhaps had a pharmaceutical use for some medicinal preparation), with the intrusive m added to gingiber, from Latin zingiber (“ginger”), of earlier Sanskrit origin, through Ancient Greek ζιγγίβερις (zingíberis). The third syllable was earlier confounded with bread, and the insertion of an r in the second syllable completed the semblance of a compound word: ginger + bread.
Synonyms
gingerbread up
Scrabble Score: 16
gingerbread is a valid Scrabble (US) TWL wordgingerbread is a valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
gingerbread is a valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary