Gently

How to spell gently

6 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce gently

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does gently mean?

1. adverbIn a soft, mild, or careful manner, without force or harshness.

Gently in a sentence

• She closed the nursery door gently so the baby would not wake.

• The nurse gently lifted the patient's arm to change the dressing.

Where does gently come from?

Language of origin: French

The word descends from the adjective gentle, which English took from the Old French gentil, meaning 'high-born' or 'noble'. That French word came in turn from the Latin gentilis, which originally meant 'belonging to the same gens', that is, to the same family or clan; gens itself meant a stock or extended family. Across the 1200s and 1300s the sense drifted from social rank toward the manners thought to suit a well-bred person, so 'gentle' came to mean mild, tender, and refined rather than merely noble. The adverb gently was formed by adding the native English ending -ly, and notice that the silent 'e' of gentle is dropped before that ending, which is the small spelling point worth fixing in memory. The very same Latin root also gives us the doublets gentile, genteel, and the borrowed word jaunty, all branches of one family tree.

How the word is built

• gentl- (from gentle: mild, soft, well-born)
• -ly (adverb suffix)