GENTLEMAN

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does gentleman mean? 

• GENTLEMAN (noun)
  The noun GENTLEMAN has 2 senses:

1. a man of refinement

2. a manservant who acts as a personal attendant to his employer

  Familiarity information: GENTLEMAN used as a noun is rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GENTLEMAN (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A man of refinement

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

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

adult male; man (an adult person who is male (as opposed to a woman))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "gentleman"):

Don (a Spanish gentleman or nobleman)

gent (informal abbreviation of 'gentleman')

gentleman-at-arms (one of 40 gentlemen who attend the British sovereign on state occasions)

Derivation:

gentlemanly (befitting a man of good breeding)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A manservant who acts as a personal attendant to his employer

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

gentleman; gentleman's gentleman; man; valet; valet de chambre

Context example:

Jeeves was Bertie Wooster's man

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

body servant (a valet or personal maid)

manservant (a man servant)

 Context examples 

I have safely conducted these three gentlemen to the spot mentioned, and I have, as you have heard, convinced them of the accuracy of my previous account.

(The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

If it were a pig now—like that fat gentleman you are driving along at his ease—one could do something with it; it would at any rate make sausages.

(Fairy Tales, by The Brothers Grimm)

He is an odd old gentleman, but that pleased him.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

In many ways, this month you will be a lady or gentleman in waiting.

(AstrologyZone.com, by Susan Miller)

She was one of the ladies who sang: a gentleman accompanied her on the piano.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

“I was engaged, sir, on what we call sealed orders, to sail this ship for that gentleman where he should bid me,” said the captain.

(Treasure Island, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Mr. Kirwin is a magistrate, and you are to give an account of the death of a gentleman who was found murdered here last night.

(Frankenstein, by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley)

These gentlemen, after they had a while examined my shape with much nicety, were of different opinions concerning me.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

“Let us say “good night”, my fine boy,” said the gentleman, when he had bent his head—I saw him!—over my mother's little glove.

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

But I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures.

(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)