genteel
Americanadjective
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belonging or suited to polite society.
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well-bred or refined; polite; elegant; stylish.
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affectedly or pretentiously polite, delicate, etc.
adjective
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affectedly proper or refined; excessively polite
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respectable, polite, and well-bred
a genteel old lady
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appropriate to polite or fashionable society
genteel behaviour
Other Word Forms
- genteelly adverb
- genteelness noun
- pseudogenteel adjective
- quasi-genteel adjective
- quasi-genteelly adverb
- ungenteel adjective
Etymology
Origin of genteel
1590–1600; < French gentil; gentle
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
This is simply his pitch for escaping New York, but in a genteel manner.
From Salon
Not a polite, genteel smile but an actual unexpected giggle.
From Literature
Teacher and performer, he revealed the works of Nature to a genteel audience amid the sensory manipulations of the theater.
The winner Talarico, who has a Master of Divinity degree from a Christian seminary, offered a more genteel approach.
From BBC
Injury ended his gridiron dreams and led him onto the more genteel fields of baseball, where he became a peacekeeper rather than a mayhem maker.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
