gentleman
Any well-bred, well-mannered, or charming man.
Other meanings
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; an armigerous 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.”
An effeminate or oversophisticated man.
“Well, la-di-da, aren't you just a proper gentleman?”
Related words
- April gentleman
- country gentleman
- first gentleman
- gentleman farm
- gent
- gentleboy
- gentleman about town
- gentleman and scholar
- gentleman-at-arms
- gentleman-commoner
- gentleman cow
- gentleman farmer
Word history
From Middle English "gentilman".
Where this comes from
This definition is adapted from “gentleman” on Wiktionary, by its contributors, published under CC BY-SA 4.0. This page is published under the same licence.