Added 9 October 2026
gentleman
/ˈd͡ʒɛn.təl.mən/ noun
noun Definition from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). Pronunciation from Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org. More about gentleman at Wordnik → Where our words come from →
- Any well-bred, well-mannered, or charming man.
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Any man.
Please escort this gentleman to the gentlemen's room.
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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.
Origin
From Middle English gentilman, morphologically gentle + man, partial calque of Old French gentilhome.
From Wiktionary, via Kaikki.org (CC BY-SA)