ginned

1. 1
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of gin.

   The workers ginned the harvest before shipping it to the mill.

   Most of the crop had been ginned by the end of the week.

   Note

   One spelling does double duty: the past tense (they ginned the crop) and the participle (the crop was ginned), with the n doubled before -ed as in pinned. Two everyday verbs stand behind it, each named for a different device: the cotton gin that strips out seeds, and the gin that snares. Only context tells them apart. The archaic gin meaning "begin" is a separate word that happens to share the spelling.

2. 2
   adjectivedated

   Intoxicated by alcohol; drunk.

   Similardrunk, intoxicated, tight, sozzled, soused

   Oppositesober

   Note

   Slang named after the bottle: to be ginned is to have had too much of the liquor. It now sounds dated, at home in period dialogue or a deliberately old-fashioned voice rather than in everyday talk, where plain drunk is the safe choice. It grades like any adjective (more ginned, most ginned). It shares its spelling with the cotton-gin past tense, so the cotton field and the bar meet in one word.

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