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Demure vs Gingerly - What's the difference?

demure | gingerly |

As adjectives the difference between demure and gingerly

is that demure is quiet, modest, reserved, sober, or serious while gingerly is very careful or cautious.

As a verb demure

is (obsolete) to look demurely.

As an adverb gingerly is

gently; in a delicate or cautious manner.

demure

English

Adjective

(en adjective)
  • Quiet, modest, reserved, sober, or serious.
    • She is a demure young lady.
  • * W. Black
    • Nan was very much delighted in her demure way, and that delight showed itself in her face and in her clear bright eyes.
  • * '>citation
  • Affectedly modest, decorous, or serious; making a show of gravity.
  • * L'Estrange
    • A cat lay, and looked so demure , as if there had been neither life nor soul in her.
  • * Miss Mitford
    • Miss Lizzy, I have no doubt, would be as demure and coquettish, as if ten winters more had gone over her head.

    Derived terms

    * demureness

    Verb

    (demur)
  • (obsolete) To look demurely.
    • Your wife Octavia, with her modest eyes... shall acquire no Honour Demuring upon me.'' – Shakespeare (1623) ''Antony & Cleopatra Act 4, Sc 16, Ln 30

    gingerly

    English

    Adverb

    (en adverb)
  • Gently; in a delicate or cautious manner.
    • He placed the glass jar gingerly on the concrete step.
  • * {{quote-news
    • , year=2012 , date=June 3 , author=Nathan Rabin , title=TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “Mr. Plow” (season 4, episode 9; originally aired 11/19/1992) citation , page= , passage=Purchasing a snowplow transforms Homer into a new man. Mr. Burns' laziest employee suddenly becomes an ambitious self-starter who buys ad time on local television at 3:17 A.M (prime viewing hours, Homer gingerly volunteers, for everyone from alcoholics to the unemployable to garden-variety angry loners) and makes a homemade commercial costarring his family.}}

    Adjective

    (en adjective)
  • very careful or cautious.
  • * 1867 , (Rebecca Harding Davis), Waiting For The Verdict'', chapter 19 “The Valley of the Shadow”, published 1868 in ''The Galaxy magazine, volume 4, page 223:
    • But, ther’s somethin’ in the very look and voice of Jeems Strebling, even in his gingerly walk, that riles all the black drop in me.
  • * 1886 , (Thomas Hardy), (The Mayor of Casterbridge) , :
    • …penetrating cautiously into dark cellars, sallying forth with gingerly tread to the garden, now leaf-strewn by autumn winds…
  • * 2012 , (w), Star Trek: The Next Generation — Cold Equations Book One: Persistence of Memory , chapter 28:
    • Several gingerly taps on her console fired clusters of modified probes into the maelstrom of the gas giant’s atmosphere.

    Anagrams

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    References

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