genteel
[jen-teel]
- belonging or suited to polite society.
- well-bred or refined; polite; elegant; stylish.
- affectedly or pretentiously polite, delicate, etc.
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Origin of genteel
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for genteel
Contemporary Examples
These nonchalant brutalities seem at first at odds with the genteel decorum that mostly cloaks late-19th century culture.
This racial balancing act makes Belle one of the most genteel yet uncomfortable depictions of racism ever to grace the screen.
The Daily Pic: Steve Mumford's genteel watercolors capture the hard truths of Gitmo.
Mischievous, more bite than bark in the sense that it was mordant with minimal rhetoric, Heaney was not genteel.
Bennett is genteel, an elite solider, someone who is as comfortable with secularism as he is with his religiosity.
Historical Examples
Their conversation, though no doubt as genteel as before, was all of broken hearts.
Quaint CourtshipsVarious
He chose the most genteel, however; he became a wine merchant.
Tales And Novels, Volume 4 (of 10)Maria Edgeworth
It was the host's profound misfortune to have been overcome by that too genteel lady.
Little DorritCharles Dickens
Every one seemed to think it wouldn't be genteel to eat after the disaster.
One Of ThemCharles James Lever
There are many boys of genteel family, who would have been glad of the chance.
Paul Prescott's ChargeHoratio Alger
genteel
- affectedly proper or refined; excessively polite
- respectable, polite, and well-breda genteel old lady
- appropriate to polite or fashionable societygenteel behaviour
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Word Origin
C16: from French gentil well-born; see gentle
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
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Word Origin and History for genteel
adj.
1590s, from Middle French gentil "stylish, fashionable, elegant; nice, graceful, pleasing," from Old French gentil "high-born, noble" (11c.); a reborrowing of the French word that had early come into English as gentle (q.v.), with French pronunciation and stress preserved to emphasize the distinction. Cf. also jaunty; gentile. OED 2nd ed. reports genteel "is now used, except by the ignorant, only in mockery" (a development it dates from the 1840s).
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper