Gentleman

How to spell gentleman

9 letters · 3 syllables

How to pronounce gentleman

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does gentleman mean?

1. nounA man who behaves with courtesy, honour, and good manners; also used as a polite term for any man.

Gentleman in a sentence

• The host greeted every gentleman at the door with a firm handshake.

• He was raised to be a true gentleman, always holding the door and listening before he spoke.

Where does gentleman come from?

Language of origin: French

This word is a compound that pairs the borrowed adjective gentle with the native English word man. The first element came from Old French gentil, meaning 'high-born' or 'noble', which itself traces back to the Latin gentilis, 'belonging to the same family or clan', from gens, meaning 'family, race, or people'. When the two parts were joined in English in the 1200s, a gentleman was literally a man of good birth, one entitled to bear a coat of arms but ranking below the nobility. Over the centuries the emphasis drifted away from bloodline and towards behaviour, so that the word came to praise courtesy, honour, and good manners rather than ancestry. The same gentil root also gave English 'genteel', 'gentle', and 'gentry', and the quiet spelling trap is that the polished 'gentle' is preserved whole inside the longer word, ending in -le before man.

How the word is built

• gentle (from Old French gentil: high-born, noble)
• man (Old English mann: person, male adult)

Words that sound like gentleman

They sound the same but mean different things, so the meaning decides which spelling to write.

• gentlemen: More than one gentleman; a polite or formal term for men, often used to address a group.