gentry Definition
gen·try (jen′trē)
noun
- Obsolete rank resulting from birth; esp., high rank
- people of high social standing; esp., in Great Britain, the class of landowning people ranking just below the nobility
- 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 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 ' .
Browse dictionary entries near gentry
- ‹ gentrify
- ‹ gentrification
- ‹ Gentoo
- ‹ gently
- ‹ gentlewoman
- ‹ gentleness
- ‹ gentlemens agreement
- ‹ gentlemanly
- ‹ gentleman of fortune
- ‹ gentleman-farmer
- genu ›
- genuflect ›
- genuine ›
- genus ›
- -geny ›
- GEO ›
- geo- ›
- geobotany ›
- geocentric ›
- geochemistry ›

