ginger up

ginger up

Meaning

• This phrase means to either get excited.
• Enthusiastic behaviour is known as gingering up.
• To get someone's ginger up means to make someone else excited or enthusiastic.

Example Sentences

1. As soon as they heard about the picnic the children in the class gingered up.
2. I got him to ginger up about the vacation that I have been planning for months by showing him the itinerary. Otherwise he is only interested in his work and work related trips.
3. Whenever she meets her sisters children she gingers up. They remind her of her own children who have now moved abroad.
4. Her dog gingers up every time she comes home from office and does not stop wagging his tail until she plays with him for a while.
5. The game players did not do well today at practice so the coach is taking them out to ginger them up.

Origin
This is an American phrase which was first seen coined in 1785 by Francis Grose in ‘A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue'. Grose speaks about gingering up with regards to training a horse and making him lively. It was again seen used in 1843 by Thomas Haliburton, again in the context of training horses and making them ginger up. In 1895 the phrase was used by an evening news in Nebraska which made it popular in common parlance of the Yankees.