gentility
[jen-til-i-tee]
- good breeding or refinement.
- affected or pretentious politeness or elegance.
- the status of belonging to polite society.
- members of polite society collectively.
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Origin of gentility
Synonyms
See more synonyms for gentility on Thesaurus.com1. polish, grace, decorum, propriety.
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Examples from the Web for gentility
Contemporary Examples
Packaging these rebuffs with gentility and kindness may or may not succeed.
Today: Germans on socialism, Russians on gentility, and gay men on the British royals.
Historical Examples
What, in the name of gentility, can you know of fashionable life?
The boy, Leonard Bast, stood at the extreme verge of gentility.
Howards EndE. M. Forster
By that road, his progress to the goal of gentility would be smooth and simple.
The Market-PlaceHarold Frederic
To me, this was a precious document; it was a patent of gentility at once.
Confessions Of Con CreganCharles James Lever
I knew that the gentility of the knock had taken both her and her mother aback.
A Window in ThrumsJ. M. Barrie
gentility
- respectability and polite good breeding
- affected politeness
- noble birth or ancestry
- people of noble birth
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Word Origin
C14: from Old French gentilite, from Latin gentīlitās relationship of those belonging to the same tribe or family; see gens
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition
© William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Word Origin and History for gentility
n.
mid-14c., "gentle birth," from Old French gentilité (14c.) or directly from Latin gentilitatem (nominative gentilitas) "relationship in the same family or clan," from gentilis (see gentle). Meaning "state of being gentile" is from 1520s.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper