"gentlefolk" meaning in English

See gentlefolk in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

IPA: /ˈd͡ʒɛntl̩fəʊk/ [Received-Pronunciation], /ˈd͡ʒɛntl̩ˌfoʊk/ [General-American], [ˈd͡ʒɛɾ̃l̩-] [General-American] Audio: LL-Q1860 (eng)-AcpoKrane-gentlefolk.wav
Etymology: From gentle (“(archaic) well-born; of a good family or respectable birth”) + folk. Etymology templates: {{compound|en|gentle|folk|t1=(archaic) well-born; of a good family or respectable birth}} gentle (“(archaic) well-born; of a good family or respectable birth”) + folk, {{!}} | Head templates: {{en-noun|p}} gentlefolk pl (plural only)
  1. (archaic) People of superior social position. Tags: archaic, plural, plural-only Synonyms: aristocrats, the high-born, upper class, gentlefolks [obsolete] Related terms: gentlelady [US], gentleman, gentlewoman [historical], gentry Translations (people of superior social position): herrasväki (Finnish), daoine uasal (Irish), aristocratico [masculine] (Italian), daoine uasal (Scottish Gaelic), fint folk [neuter] (Swedish), herrskap (Swedish), па́нство (pánstvo) [neuter] (Ukrainian)
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  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
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        {
          "ref": "c. 1593 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The Tragedy of King Richard the Third. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Valentine Sims [and Peter Short] for Andrew Wise, […], published 1597, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:",
          "text": "We ſay that Shores wife hath a prety foote, / A cherry lippe, a bonny eie, a paſſing pleaſing tongue: / And that the Queenes kindred are made gentlefolks.",
          "type": "quote"
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          "ref": "1729, [Thomas] d’Urfey, “[The Comical History of Don Quixote. With the Marriage of Mary the Buxome. Part III.] Epilogue, by Mary the Buxome”, in The Comical History of Don Quixote. […], London: Printed for J[ohn] Darby, […], A[rthur] Bettesworth […], and F[rancis] Clay […], all in trust for Richard, James, and Bethel Wellington, →OCLC, page 211:",
          "text": "Well, Gentlefolk, I dare now wage a Crown, / You take me for the verieſt Romp in Town,— / But ere I part from ye, I'll let you ſee, / There's other Molly Buxomes beſides me; [...]",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1808 October 1, “Mrs. Bell’s Petition”, in The Satirist, or Monthly Meteor, volume III, London: Printed for Samuel Tipper, […]; T. Gillet, printer, […], →OCLC, page 286:",
          "text": "What do gentlefolks come to an inn for, if it is not for entertainment and accommodation?",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1822, [Walter Scott], chapter IX, in Peveril of the Peak. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC, page 223:",
          "text": "What was it to her what gentlefolks ate or drank, provided they paid for it honestly? There were many honest gentlemen, whose stomachs could not abide bacon, grease, or dripping, especially on a Friday; and what was that to her, or any one in her line, so gentlefolks paid honestly for the trouble?",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1827 August 18, W. P. S., “The Common-place Book. No. XIX. Novel Writers and Novel Readers.”, in The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, volume X, number 269, London: Printed and published by J[ohn] Limbird, […], →OCLC, pages 118–119:",
          "text": "If there be any evil in novels at all, it is when they take people from their business—when they occupy a mother's time to the neglect of her children—when they lead idle boys to neglect their lessons, and when they lead idle gentlefolks to fancy themselves employed, when they are only killing time.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1839 November 16, [Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.], “The Question Asked”, in Supplement to the Connecticut Courant, volume V, number 46, Hartford, Conn.: John L. Boswell, publisher, →OCLC, page 361, column 1:",
          "text": "I love to hear thy earnest voice wherever thou art hid, / Thou testy little dogmatist, thou pretty Katydid! / Thou mindest me of gentlefolks, old gentlefolks are they— / Thou say'st an undisputed thing, in such a solemn way.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1885 January, [Margaret Oliphant Wilson Oliphant], “The Portrait. A Story of the Seen and the Unseen.”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CXXXVII, number DCCCXXXI, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood & Sons, […], →OCLC, page 13, column 1:",
          "text": "\"Ah!\" she said, with a little cry of disappointment, \"my man said not to make too sure, and that the ways of the gentlefolks is hard to know.\"",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1891, Thomas Hardy, chapter III, in Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented […], volume I, London: James R[ipley] Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., […], →OCLC, phase the first (The Maiden), page 32:",
          "text": "We've been found to be the greatest gentlefolk in the whole county—reaching all back long before Oliver Grumble's time—to the days of the Pagan Turks—with monuments, and vaults, and crests, and 'scutcheons, and the Lord knows what all.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1908–1910, E[dward] M[organ] Forster, “Leonard and Jacky”, in Howards End, New York, N.Y., London: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons […], published 1910, →OCLC, page 53:",
          "text": "We are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable and only to be approached by the statistician and the poet. This story deals with gentlefolk, or with those who are obliged to pretend that they are gentlefolk.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter XXI, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 240:",
          "text": "This gift, which had been accompanied by a few kind words, had gone to Bunting's heart. It had confirmed him in his Conservative principles; only gentlefolk ever behaved in that way; quiet, old-fashioned, respectable gentlefolk, the sort of people of whom those nasty Radicals knew nothing and care less!",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2002, David Crouch, “The Household Knight”, in William Marshal: Knighthood, War and Chivalry, 1147–1219, 2nd edition, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, published 2014, →ISBN, page 29:",
          "text": "The twelfth century was the fist medieval century to know the sorry plight of distressed gentlefolk. Western society had, by then, discovered standards of display which the man of blood had to live up to, or fall in dignity.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "People of superior social position."
      ],
      "id": "en-gentlefolk-en-noun-cJmWF~pK",
      "links": [
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          "People",
          "person"
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          "superior",
          "superior#Adjective"
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        ]
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        "(archaic) People of superior social position."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "tags": [
            "US"
          ],
          "word": "gentlelady"
        },
        {
          "word": "gentleman"
        },
        {
          "tags": [
            "historical"
          ],
          "word": "gentlewoman"
        },
        {
          "word": "gentry"
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      ],
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          "word": "aristocrats"
        },
        {
          "word": "the high-born"
        },
        {
          "word": "upper class"
        },
        {
          "tags": [
            "obsolete"
          ],
          "word": "gentlefolks"
        }
      ],
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        "archaic",
        "plural",
        "plural-only"
      ],
      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fi",
          "lang": "Finnish",
          "sense": "people of superior social position",
          "word": "herrasväki"
        },
        {
          "code": "ga",
          "lang": "Irish",
          "sense": "people of superior social position",
          "word": "daoine uasal"
        },
        {
          "code": "it",
          "lang": "Italian",
          "sense": "people of superior social position",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "aristocratico"
        },
        {
          "code": "gd",
          "lang": "Scottish Gaelic",
          "sense": "people of superior social position",
          "word": "daoine uasal"
        },
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          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "people of superior social position",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "fint folk"
        },
        {
          "code": "sv",
          "lang": "Swedish",
          "sense": "people of superior social position",
          "word": "herrskap"
        },
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          "code": "uk",
          "lang": "Ukrainian",
          "roman": "pánstvo",
          "sense": "people of superior social position",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
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        }
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      "ipa": "/ˈd͡ʒɛntl̩ˌfoʊk/",
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      "ipa": "[ˈd͡ʒɛɾ̃l̩-]",
      "tags": [
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  "word": "gentlefolk"
}
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      "name": "compound"
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    {
      "args": {},
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  "lang_code": "en",
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      "tags": [
        "US"
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      "word": "gentlelady"
    },
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      "word": "gentleman"
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      "tags": [
        "historical"
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      "word": "gentlewoman"
    },
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          "word": "the low-born"
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        "Entries with translation boxes",
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        "Terms with Finnish translations",
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        "Terms with Italian translations",
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        "Terms with Ukrainian translations",
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        {
          "ref": "c. 1593 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The Tragedy of King Richard the Third. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Valentine Sims [and Peter Short] for Andrew Wise, […], published 1597, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]:",
          "text": "We ſay that Shores wife hath a prety foote, / A cherry lippe, a bonny eie, a paſſing pleaſing tongue: / And that the Queenes kindred are made gentlefolks.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1729, [Thomas] d’Urfey, “[The Comical History of Don Quixote. With the Marriage of Mary the Buxome. Part III.] Epilogue, by Mary the Buxome”, in The Comical History of Don Quixote. […], London: Printed for J[ohn] Darby, […], A[rthur] Bettesworth […], and F[rancis] Clay […], all in trust for Richard, James, and Bethel Wellington, →OCLC, page 211:",
          "text": "Well, Gentlefolk, I dare now wage a Crown, / You take me for the verieſt Romp in Town,— / But ere I part from ye, I'll let you ſee, / There's other Molly Buxomes beſides me; [...]",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1808 October 1, “Mrs. Bell’s Petition”, in The Satirist, or Monthly Meteor, volume III, London: Printed for Samuel Tipper, […]; T. Gillet, printer, […], →OCLC, page 286:",
          "text": "What do gentlefolks come to an inn for, if it is not for entertainment and accommodation?",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1822, [Walter Scott], chapter IX, in Peveril of the Peak. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC, page 223:",
          "text": "What was it to her what gentlefolks ate or drank, provided they paid for it honestly? There were many honest gentlemen, whose stomachs could not abide bacon, grease, or dripping, especially on a Friday; and what was that to her, or any one in her line, so gentlefolks paid honestly for the trouble?",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1827 August 18, W. P. S., “The Common-place Book. No. XIX. Novel Writers and Novel Readers.”, in The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, volume X, number 269, London: Printed and published by J[ohn] Limbird, […], →OCLC, pages 118–119:",
          "text": "If there be any evil in novels at all, it is when they take people from their business—when they occupy a mother's time to the neglect of her children—when they lead idle boys to neglect their lessons, and when they lead idle gentlefolks to fancy themselves employed, when they are only killing time.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1839 November 16, [Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.], “The Question Asked”, in Supplement to the Connecticut Courant, volume V, number 46, Hartford, Conn.: John L. Boswell, publisher, →OCLC, page 361, column 1:",
          "text": "I love to hear thy earnest voice wherever thou art hid, / Thou testy little dogmatist, thou pretty Katydid! / Thou mindest me of gentlefolks, old gentlefolks are they— / Thou say'st an undisputed thing, in such a solemn way.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1885 January, [Margaret Oliphant Wilson Oliphant], “The Portrait. A Story of the Seen and the Unseen.”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CXXXVII, number DCCCXXXI, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood & Sons, […], →OCLC, page 13, column 1:",
          "text": "\"Ah!\" she said, with a little cry of disappointment, \"my man said not to make too sure, and that the ways of the gentlefolks is hard to know.\"",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1891, Thomas Hardy, chapter III, in Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented […], volume I, London: James R[ipley] Osgood, McIlvaine and Co., […], →OCLC, phase the first (The Maiden), page 32:",
          "text": "We've been found to be the greatest gentlefolk in the whole county—reaching all back long before Oliver Grumble's time—to the days of the Pagan Turks—with monuments, and vaults, and crests, and 'scutcheons, and the Lord knows what all.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1908–1910, E[dward] M[organ] Forster, “Leonard and Jacky”, in Howards End, New York, N.Y., London: G[eorge] P[almer] Putnam’s Sons […], published 1910, →OCLC, page 53:",
          "text": "We are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable and only to be approached by the statistician and the poet. This story deals with gentlefolk, or with those who are obliged to pretend that they are gentlefolk.",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1913, Mrs. [Marie] Belloc Lowndes, chapter XXI, in The Lodger, London: Methuen, →OCLC; republished in Novels of Mystery: The Lodger; The Story of Ivy; What Really Happened, New York, N.Y.: Longmans, Green and Co., […], [1933], →OCLC, page 240:",
          "text": "This gift, which had been accompanied by a few kind words, had gone to Bunting's heart. It had confirmed him in his Conservative principles; only gentlefolk ever behaved in that way; quiet, old-fashioned, respectable gentlefolk, the sort of people of whom those nasty Radicals knew nothing and care less!",
          "type": "quote"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2002, David Crouch, “The Household Knight”, in William Marshal: Knighthood, War and Chivalry, 1147–1219, 2nd edition, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, New York, N.Y.: Routledge, published 2014, →ISBN, page 29:",
          "text": "The twelfth century was the fist medieval century to know the sorry plight of distressed gentlefolk. Western society had, by then, discovered standards of display which the man of blood had to live up to, or fall in dignity.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "People of superior social position."
      ],
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        ],
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          "position#Noun"
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      "raw_glosses": [
        "(archaic) People of superior social position."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "aristocrats"
        },
        {
          "word": "the high-born"
        },
        {
          "word": "upper class"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
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        "plural",
        "plural-only"
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      "ipa": "/ˈd͡ʒɛntl̩ˌfoʊk/",
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      "ipa": "[ˈd͡ʒɛɾ̃l̩-]",
      "tags": [
        "General-American"
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  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "tags": [
        "obsolete"
      ],
      "word": "gentlefolks"
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fi",
      "lang": "Finnish",
      "sense": "people of superior social position",
      "word": "herrasväki"
    },
    {
      "code": "ga",
      "lang": "Irish",
      "sense": "people of superior social position",
      "word": "daoine uasal"
    },
    {
      "code": "it",
      "lang": "Italian",
      "sense": "people of superior social position",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "aristocratico"
    },
    {
      "code": "gd",
      "lang": "Scottish Gaelic",
      "sense": "people of superior social position",
      "word": "daoine uasal"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "people of superior social position",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "fint folk"
    },
    {
      "code": "sv",
      "lang": "Swedish",
      "sense": "people of superior social position",
      "word": "herrskap"
    },
    {
      "code": "uk",
      "lang": "Ukrainian",
      "roman": "pánstvo",
      "sense": "people of superior social position",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "па́нство"
    }
  ],
  "word": "gentlefolk"
}

Download raw JSONL data for gentlefolk meaning in English (8.5kB)


This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-11-06 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-10-02 using wiktextract (fbeafe8 and 7f03c9b). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.