It's Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for April 20th.
Today's word is gingerly, spelled G-I-N-G-E-R-L-Y.
Gingerly is an adjective.
An actor-manner described as gingerly is very cautious or careful.
Here's the word used in a sentence from the Chinook Observer from Long Beach, Washington.
Note, bears do not, in a gingerly manner,
put their paws against each stem of a lovely ripe pear and gently pull upward against the branch.
The proper harvesting method.
Picked in bear lingo means tearing down carefully constructed tree cages and knocking as many branches to the ground as needed,
then taking several bites out of each luscious pear, leaving scattered remnants all over the ground.
Though more common as an adverb, meaning very cautiously and carefully,
as in moving gingerly across the icy pond,
gingerly has, for more than four centuries, functioned both as an adverb and as an adjective.
Etymologists take a gingerly approach to assigning any particular origins to gingerly.
While it might have come from the name of the spice, there's nothing concrete to back up that idea.
Another theory is that it's related to an old French word,
j'en sort, meaning prettier or more beautiful,
with evidence being that in 16th century English,
an earlier sense of gingerly often described dancing or walking done with dainty steps.
It wasn't until the 17th century that gingerly was applied to movements done with caution in order to avoid being noisy or causing injury and to a wary manner in handling or presenting ideas.