gingered

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of ginger.

   The keynote speaker gingered up the audience with bold, surprising promises.

   By midweek the campaign had gingered up public interest in the referendum.

   Note

   A regular verb, so one spelling serves both the past (she gingered the sauce) and the participle after have or in the passive (the sauce was gingered). Most uses take an object: adding ginger, livening something up, often with up as in gingered up the debate, or, in Nigerian English, giving someone a boost. The odd one out is the sense of moving gingerly, which takes no object.

2. 2
   adjective

   Prepared or spiced with ginger.

   The chef served a gingered pear tart with a spoonful of cream.

   A dish of gingered carrots rounded out the holiday table.

   Similarspiced

   Note

   A menu word as much as a kitchen one: it usually sits right before the dish it flavors, as in Amanda Hesser's gingered pheasant consommé in the New York Times (2007). Built from ginger plus -ed, it can be graded (more gingered, most gingered). That is one way to tell it from the verb's past forms, which report that someone did the gingering.

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