gingerliness

Sebald approaches this cozy English object with mock-solemn gingerliness, as if he were an anthropologist presenting one of his exhibits.

He failed to maintain the gingerliness essential for handstarting a plane motor.

At five o'clock, when I felt that a gentle shaking of Charlotte was no longer avoidable if we were to reach Binz that evening, and was preparing to apply it with cousinly gingerliness, an obliging bumble-bee who had been swinging deliciously for some minutes past in the purple flower of a foxglove on the very edge of the cliff, backed out of it and blundered so near Charlotte's face that he brushed it with his wings.

Young unmarried women loved "to show coyness in gestures, mince in words and speeches, gingerliness in tripping on toes like young goats, demure nicety and babyishness," and when they went out, they had silk scarfs "cast about their faces, fluttering in the wind, or riding in their velvet visors, with two holes cut for the eyes."

Bob and Nellie were presently seen in the distance, in close colloquy with the guard, who, after a bit, lugged out from his van, with much deliberation of movement and ‘gingerliness’ of manner, a huge black retriever, who apparently did not wish just then to issue forth from his retreat.