Gents

How to spell gents

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce gents

What does gents mean?

1. nounAn informal plural term for men or gentlemen.
2. nounThe men's public toilet, usually referred to as 'the gents'.

Gents in a sentence

• The gents in the warehouse clubbed together to buy the retiring foreman a gift.

• The gents is down the corridor, just past the lift on the right.

• A few of the older gents still wear a suit and tie to the office every day.

• A plumber spent the afternoon fixing a blocked sink in the gents at the pub.

Where does gents come from?

Language of origin: French

This is the plural of 'gent', which began life in the 1500s as a casual clipping of 'gentleman'. 'Gentleman' itself joins the Old French 'gentil', meaning 'high-born, noble or refined', to the native English 'man'. 'Gentil' descends from the Latin 'gentilis', which meant 'belonging to the same family or clan', built on 'gens', a clan or extended household. Over the centuries the word drifted from strict notions of noble birth toward simply meaning a man, and the breezy short form 'gent' became thoroughly informal. In British use 'the gents' also came to label the men's public lavatory, a polite shorthand drawn from signs marked for ladies and gentlemen. The silent path is straightforward to spell, since 'gents' sounds exactly as it is written.

How the word is built

• gent (clipped from gentleman, ultimately from gentle 'well-born')
• -s (plural)