gingerbread

Meaning

Noun

• A type of cake whose main flavoring is ginger.
• Something ersatz; something showy but insubstantial.
• A flamboyant Victorian-era architectural style.

Origin

• From Middle English gyngebred, gyngebrede, from Old French gingembras, gingimbrat, from Medieval Latin *gingimbrātus, with intrusive m added to gingiber, from Latin zingiber, of earlier Sanskrit origin, through Ancient Greek ζιγγίβερις. The third syllable was early confounded with bread, and the insertion of an r in the second syllable completed the semblance of a compound word: .