Gentility
[dʒen'tɪlɪtɪ] or [dʒɛn'tɪləti]
Definition
(n.) Good extraction; dignity of birth.
(n.) 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.
(n.) The class in society who are, or are expected to be, genteel; the gentry.
(n.) Paganism; heathenism.
Typed by Claire
Synonyms and Synonymous
n. Politeness, courtesy, urbanity, good breeding, good behavior, refinement of manners.
Inputed by Byron
Synonyms and Antonyms
[See GENTEEL]
Typist: Naomi
Examples
- I had imagined him, I confess, a degree or two nearer gentility. Jane Austen. Emma.
- I have frequently thought that I must have been intended by nature to be fond of low company, I am so little at my ease among strangers of gentility! Jane Austen. Sense and Sensibility.
- He is very plain, undoubtedlyremarkably plain:but that is nothing compared with his entire want of gentility. Jane Austen. Emma.
- They plume them-selves on their gentility there, I can tell you, if that's any satisfaction. Charles Dickens. David Copperfield.
- Such was the blood of gentility which Emma had formerly been so ready to vouch for! Jane Austen. Emma.
- His being a clergyman would be only for gentility's sake, and I think there is nothing more contemptible than such imbecile gentility. George Eliot. Middlemarch.
- Jos liked to hear it, but the Major used to go off growling at the appearance of this woman, with her twopenny gentility. William Makepeace Thackeray. Vanity Fair.
- Her sister asserted the family gentility by flouting the poor swain as he loitered about the prison for glimpses of his dear. Charles Dickens. Little Dorrit.
- Old Mr. Letterblair, the accredited legal adviser of three generations of New York gentility, throned behind his mahogany desk in evident perplexity. Edith Wharton. The Age of Innocence.
- For a time, therefore, the old families and country gentility sent their servants and their luggage by train, but themselves jogged along the old post-roads in the family chariots. Rupert S. Holland. Historic Inventions.
- The proud mother's world was not their world of Harley Street gentilities on the one hand, or country clergymen and Hampshire squires on the other. Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell. North and South.
Checker: Tanya