gentleman
/ˈd͡ʒɛn.təl.mən/
gentleman means A surname transferred from the nickname. It carries an Arena rating of 1498, earned across 7 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, gentleman ranks #1,490 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #1,687 of 17,134 for Most Malleable Words, #4,892 of 17,130 for Most Beautiful Words, #6,247 of 17,126 for Most Elegant Words.
gentleman is pronounced /ˈd͡ʒɛn.təl.mən/.
Why “gentleman” is a great word
A man distinguished by good birth, courteous manners, and independent financial means, historically occupying the social tier below the formal nobility in the English system. From Middle English *gentilman*, a partial calque of Old French *gentilhome* ("man of noble birth"), from *gentil* ("noble, high-born") + *homme* ("man"), first attested c. 1200. Unlike a "nobleman," defined by hereditary title, or a "boor," defined by coarse insensitivity, a gentleman is defined by cultivated restraint and a specific quality of consideration for others. It is the quiet closing of a door, the refusal to shame another’s poverty, the unspoken code that turns civility into moral armor—the performance of an inherited privilege that aspires, however imperfectly, to become a genuine virtue.
Etymology
From Middle English gentilman, morphologically gentle + man, partial calque of Old French gentilhome.
name
- A surname transferred from the nickname.
noun
- Any well-bred, well-mannered, or charming man.e.g.“I corralled the judge, and we started off across the fields, in no very mild state of fear of that gentleman's wife, whose vigilance was seldom relaxed.” — 1897 December (indicated as 1898), Winston Churchill, chapter VIII, in The Celebrity: An Episode, New York, N.Y.: The Macmillan Company; London: Macmillan & Co., Ltd., →OCLC:
- Any man.e.g.“Please escort this gentleman to the gentlemen's room.”
- 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; (UK law) an armigerous man ranking below a knight.e.g.“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.e.g.“Well, la-di-da, aren't you just a proper gentleman?”
- An amateur or dabbler in any field, particularly those of independent means.e.g.“Latrobe had extensive dealings with Jefferson, the most prominent gentleman-architect in the United States.” — 2004, Mary N. Woods, “The First Professional: Benjamin Henry Latrobe”, in Keith L. Eggener, editor, American Architectural History: A Contemporary Reader, electronic edition, Routledge, →ISBN, page 11
- An amateur player, particularly one whose wealth permits him to forego payment.
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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