Gingerbread is a type of sweet baked food flavored with ginger and other warm spices like cinnamon, cloves, and nutmeg. It can be soft and cake-like, or crisp and cookie-like, depending on how it's made. The molasses or brown sugar used in gingerbread gives it a rich, dark color and a slightly spicy-sweet taste that's especially popular during winter holidays.

The most famous form of gingerbread is probably the gingerbread cookie, which bakers often cut into shapes like people, stars, or houses. Gingerbread houses are a holiday tradition: you build little structures from gingerbread pieces and decorate them with icing and candy, creating edible architecture. The fairy tale “Hansel and Gretel” features a house made entirely of gingerbread and sweets, though in the story it belongs to a witch, so it's probably not a place you'd want to visit.

Gingerbread can also describe elaborate decorative woodwork on buildings, especially the fancy carved trim on Victorian houses. This architectural gingerbread looks as delicate and detailed as icing decorations on a cookie, which is how it got its name.