— gingerbready , adj.
/jin"jeuhr bred'/ , n.
1. a type of cake flavored with ginger and molasses.
2. a rolled cookie similarly flavored, often cut in fanciful shapes, and sometimes frosted.
3. elaborate, gaudy, or superfluous architectural ornamentation: a series of gables embellished with gingerbread.
adj.
4. heavily, gaudily, and superfluously ornamented: a gingerbread style of architecture.
[ 1250-1300; ME gingebreed (influenced by breed bread), var. of GINGEBRAD, -BRAT ginger paste gingembras, -brat preserved ginger gingi ( m ) bratum a medicinal preparation (neut. ptp.), deriv. of L gingiber GINGER ]