• Gentleman

    Pronunciation

    Origin

    From , morphologically en + gentle + man, .

    Full definition of gentleman

    Noun

    gentleman

    (plural gentlemen)
    1. (chiefly historical) A man of gentle but not noble birth, particularly a man of means (originally ownership of property) who does not work for a living but has no official status in a peerage; (UK law) an armiferous man ranking below a knight.
      Being a gentleman, Robert was entitled to shove other commoners into the gongpit but he still had to jump out of the way of the knights to avoid the same fate himself.
      • Marlowe Tamburlaine|1|II|ii|page=32|And when their Å¿cattered armie is Å¿ubdu’d:
        And you march on their ſlaughtered carkaſſes,
        Share equally the gold that bought their liues,
        And liue like Gentlmen in Perſea, ...
      • Jack Straw|I|18|But when Adam delued, and Eue Å¿pan,
        VVho was then a Gentleman?
      • Maxwell Mirror and the Lamp|chapter=7|passage=“... This is Mr. Churchill, who, as you are aware, is good enough to come to us for his diaconate, and, as we hope, for much longer; and being a gentleman of independent means, he declines to take any payment.” Saying this Walden rubbed his hands together and smiled contentedly.
    2. Any well-bred, well-mannered, or charming man.
      • Churchill Celebrity|chapter=8|passage=I corralled the judge, and we started off across the fields, in no very mild state of fear of that gentleman's wife, whose vigilance was seldom relaxed.
      • Birmingham Gossamer|chapter=I|passage=As a political system democracy seems to me extraordinarily foolish,. My servant is, so far as I am concerned, welcome to as many votes as he can get....I do not suppose that it matters much in reality whether laws are made by dukes or cornerboys, but I like, as far as possible, to associate with gentlemen in private life.
      • 2011, Growing Up the Greek Way in the Big Apple, She wanted to go see a movie called Gigi, which I was not too thrilled about. But being a gentleman, I bit my tongue and said, “Okay.”
    3. (pejorative) An effeminate or oversophisticated man.
      Well, la-di-da, aren't you just a proper gentleman?
    4. (polite term of address) Any man.
      Please escort this gentleman to the gentlemen's room.
    5. (usually historical, sometimes pejorative) An amateur or dabbler in any field, particularly those of independent means.
      • 2004, American Architectural History: A Contemporary Reader Chapter The First Professional: Benjamin Henry Latrobe, Latrobe had extensive dealings with Jefferson, the most prominent gentleman-architect in the United States.
    6. (cricket) An amateur player, particularly one whose wealth permits him to forego payment.

    Usage notes

    Although gentleman is used in reference to a man and gentlemen is used as a polite form of address to a group of men, it is more common to directly address a single gentleman as sir.

    The singular possesive of the sense "any well-bred, well-mannered, or charming man" can appear in ad hoc compounds to describe a polite way of doing something; e.g. a "gentleman's sweep" when a dominant basketball team allowed the opponent one win in a serieshttps://fivethirtyeight.com/features/the-bucks-played-it-safe-and-made-the-wrong-kind-of-history/.

    Derived terms

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