GENTILITY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does gentility mean? 

• GENTILITY (noun)
  The noun GENTILITY has 1 sense:

1. elegance by virtue of fineness of manner and expression

  Familiarity information: GENTILITY used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GENTILITY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

Elegance by virtue of fineness of manner and expression

Classified under:

Nouns denoting attributes of people and objects

Synonyms:

breeding; genteelness; gentility

Hypernyms ("gentility" is a kind of...):

elegance (a refined quality of gracefulness and good taste)

Derivation:

gentle (belonging to or characteristic of the nobility or aristocracy)

 Context examples 

“Robert Martin's manners have sense, sincerity, and good-humour to recommend them; and his mind has more true gentility than Harriet Smith could understand.”

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

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!

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

They plume themselves on their gentility there, I can tell you, if that's any satisfaction.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Sally, or rather Sarah (for what young lady of common gentility will reach the age of sixteen without altering her name as far as she can?), must from situation be at this time the intimate friend and confidante of her sister.

(Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen)

I had imagined him, I confess, a degree or two nearer gentility.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

By little and little it came out, that, in the competition on all points of appearance and gentility then running high in the Commons, he had spent more than his professional income, which was not a very large one, and had reduced his private means, if they ever had been great (which was exceedingly doubtful), to a very low ebb indeed.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

Their engagements at Exeter instantly gave way before such an invitation, and Lady Middleton was thrown into no little alarm on the return of Sir John, by hearing that she was very soon to receive a visit from two girls whom she had never seen in her life, and of whose elegance,—whose tolerable gentility even, she could have no proof; for the assurances of her husband and mother on that subject went for nothing at all.

(Sense and Sensibility, by Jane Austen)

Such was the blood of gentility which Emma had formerly been so ready to vouch for!

(Emma, by Jane Austen)

At these times, Mr. Micawber would be transported with grief and mortification, even to the length (as I was once made aware by a scream from his wife) of making motions at himself with a razor; but within half-an-hour afterwards, he would polish up his shoes with extraordinary pains, and go out, humming a tune with a greater air of gentility than ever.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

He is very plain, undoubtedly—remarkably plain:—but that is nothing compared with his entire want of gentility.

(Emma, by Jane Austen)