GENTILITY • FREE TRANSLATOR.ORG • Definition of Gentility

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/dʒɛntˈɪlɪti/ Listen

noun

Gentility n.

Good extraction; dignity of birth. "He... mines my gentility with my education."

The quality or qualities appropriate to those who are well born, as self-respect, dignity, courage, courtesy, politeness of manner, a graceful and easy mien and behavior, etc.; good breeding.

The class in society who are, or are expected to be, genteel; the gentry. (R.)

Paganism; heathenism. (Obs.)

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Etymology of 'Gentility'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Gentility" Quotes from Famous Books

... particular, in defiance of our humility, as it was more extraordinary, was more provoking. In short, Mrs. Francis (for that was the name of the good woman of the house) no sooner received the news of our intended arrival than she considered more the gentility than the humanity of her guests, and applied herself not to that which kindles but to that which extinguishes fire, and, forgetting to put on her pot, fell to ...

— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding

... to discover, that this man, with all his parade of conformity, objects to every thing that is not proposed by himself: but he is so much admired by this family for his gentility, that he thinks himself a complete ...

— Evelina • Fanny Burney

... pure-spirit; that sense to whose refinement all breeding and all education is devoted; that sense which, ever an inch at least in front of man, is able to retard the development of nations, and paralyse all social schemes—this Sense of Smell awakened within him the centuries of his gentility, the ghosts of all those Dallisons who, for three hundred years and more, had served Church or State. It revived the souls of scents he was accustomed to, and with them, subtly mingled, the whole live fabric of aestheticism, woven in fresh air ...

— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... made to strike upon a heart. Under the eaves of his observatory he had his negro sculptured hugging his money-box, and a little beyond an angel exhibiting his newly-acquired coat-of-arms. The one led to the other—the money-box brought on gentility. Hard by is the shield of an allied commercial family, their coat one of fleurs-de-lis interspersed with woolsacks. The Fuggers of Augsburg, when desiring a coat, asked Maximilian for lilies—for, said these wealthy ...

— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould

... among them. The same number in our own land could not have played together for the space of an hour without biting or scratching one another. There you might have seen a throng of young females, not filled with envyings of each other's charms, nor displaying the ridiculous affectations of gentility, nor yet moving in whalebone corsets, like so many automatons, but free, inartificially ...

— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville

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