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gingerbread man

gingerbread man

6 1.0
A small sweet biscuit shaped like a person and decorated with icing
  • noun
  • /ˈdʒɪndʒərˌbrɛd mæn/
translation icon : hombre de jengibre
  • And then I've got some little gingerbread men that I'm going to put in.
  • bake gingerbread men
  • little gingerbread man
  • make gingerbread men

This one is from Lois in the UK and it's for Benjamin and it's a gingerbread man and it showed up broken in half, but it'll be an easy fix.

Examples

  • By the way, I made your gingerbread men last year, and they are absolutely amazing.

    Blog text (26)
  • During the holidays, the family baked gingerbread men cookies.

  • Look at that one gingerbread man I just got given.

  • How gorgeous is the packaging with the cute gingerbread man on the cover?

    Blog text (2)
  • They had no children, so she decides to bake a gingerbread man.

  • And I've also got these really cute little gingerbread man sprinkles.

  • I contemplated putting googly eyes on the gingerbread man, but decided they were too big for his poor little head. :)

    Blog text (12)
  • But he knew if he wandered in there, his mother would rope him into rolling out cookie dough or decorating gingerbread men.

    Fiction book (1990)
  • For Ottie's breakfast I tried to get creative and I'd seen someone on Instagram do a little gingerbread man out of a crumpet and then put an egg in it.

  • Look at that one gingerbread man I just got given.

Synonyms

gingerbread
vsgingerbread man
27 1.0

A sweet spiced cake or cookie flavored with ginger and honey

is a decorated biscuit shaped like a stylized human figure

Surface Forms

Morphology

gingerbread + man

The meaning is directly derivable from 'gingerbread' (a spiced baked sweet) + 'man' (a human figure): it refers to a gingerbread cookie shaped like a person. This compositional noun–noun compound follows common naming patterns (and has equivalents in other languages), so a B1 learner who knows both constituents would readily infer the meaning.

Etymology

Gingerbread man comes from the simple picture of a spiced cookie baked in the shape of a small person. Bakers added icing for a face and buttons so it looked like a tiny 'man'. That's why today gingerbread man means a cookie made of gingerbread dough and shaped like a human figure.