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gentry Definition

gen·try (jen′trē)

noun

  1. Obsolete rank resulting from birth; esp., high rank
  2. people of high social standing; esp., in Great Britain, the class of landowning people ranking just below the nobility
  3. people of a particular class or group the newspaper gentry

Etymology: ME genterie, noble or high birth; prob. taken as sing. of genterise, gentility of birth < OFr, var. of gentilise < gentil: see gentle

gentry Synonyms

gentry

n.

nobility, high society, upper class; see aristocracy.

gentry Usage Examples

Converse of object

  • land: Without the wealthy landed gentry, village cricket would probably not have existed.
  • neighbor: An immense number of people, including many of the neighboring gentry assembled to witness the event.
  • surround: The regime of the present rector being conspicuous for the liberality of the surrounding gentry.

Adjective modifier

  • Catholic: After failing to rally the Catholic gentry of the Midlands to join him in a rebellion he reached Holbeach House in Staffordshire.
  • lesser: It was a family of lesser gentry, owners of modest estates.
  • Welsh: Receiving no support from the Welsh gentry, however, Byron was unable to join Hamilton.
  • minor: The first stage was the popular uprising under Wallace and Andrew Moray, whose backbone was an armed peasantry led by minor gentry.
  • English: The family whose names are recorded have held at best a modest place among English gentry.
  • local: The local gentry tried to help poor children by setting up National Schools from 1811.

Modifies a noun

  • family: There were certainly more gentry families circa 1500 than knights circa 1200.
  • estate: Most castles were owned by knights and these knightly holdings at the end of the Middle Ages became gentry estates.
  • class: For many years the nation had existed as a gentry class, with its peasantry uniformly speaking a different language.
  • house: Their drawings of the great and lesser gentry houses of North Wales were highly accurate and are now of great value to researchers.
  • society: In this way could subscription lists grow by spreading through the grid of gentry society.

Noun used with modifier

  • county: Chronicle & Echo: How county gentry lost the plot.. .
  • country: Pittodrie Estate is steeped in history and you can live among country gentry when you stay here.
  • land-owning: Might we eventually return to the iniquitous polarity of a land-owning gentry v the serfs?
  • century: To the eighteenth century gentry MP his country was much more his county than England.

Preposition: in

century: The general reader with an interest in Devon's history and in the lives of the county's gentry in the seventeenth century.

Preposition: of

county: The gentry of the county frequently sent their swans to be kept there ' .