Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Refinement and courtesy resulting from good breeding.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun Gentle birth; character or manners of a person of gentle birth; courtesy; complaisance; delicacy.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun obsolete Gentleness; courtesy; kindness; nobility.
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
Support
Help support Wordnik (and make this page ad-free) by adopting the word gentilesse.
Examples
-
Emerson was very fond of the passage on "gentilesse" in Chaucer's _Wife of Bath's
Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson 1842
-
Axe congeed Modanis, then went to dark dragon, as gentilesse when face to Axe.
-
His wife Françoise was the most beautiful and accomplished woman of her time, the "perle de noblesse, de gentilesse, et de savoir;" and moreover possessed of the rich inheritance of her uncle Bertrand de Dinan, of the
Brittany & Its Byways Fanny Bury Palliser
-
This little gentilesse pleased, and atoned for the popery of my house, which was not serious enough for Madame de Boufflers, who is Montmorency, et du sang du premier Chretien; and too serious for Madame Dusson, who is a Dutch Calvinist.
Letters of Horace Walpole 01 Walpole, Horace 1890
-
Dear heart, thought I, but where were their eyes, both twain, that they saw not the lovesomeness and gentilesse of that my gallant _Protection_?
Joyce Morrell's Harvest The Annals of Selwick Hall Emily Sarah Holt 1864
-
_Gentility_ is mean, and _gentilesse_ [378] is obsolete.
Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson 1842
-
The "Cours d'Amour, parlemens d'amour, ou de courtoisie et de gentilesse" had much more of love than of courtesy or gentleness.
The Works of Lord Byron. Vol. 2 George Gordon Byron Byron 1806
-
This little gentilesse pleased, and atoned for the popery of my house, which was not serious enough for Madame de Boufflers, who is Montmorency, et du sang du premier Chritien; and too serious for Madame Dusson, who is a Dutch Calvinist.
The Letters of Horace Walpole, Earl of Orford — Volume 3 Horace Walpole 1757
-
An, then, thou say that I have committed myself with a man of mean condition, thou sayst not sooth; but shouldst thou say with a poor man, it might peradventure be conceded thee, to thy shame who hast so ill known to put a servant of thine and a man of worth in good case; yet poverty bereaveth not any of gentilesse; nay, rather, wealth it is that doth this.
The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio Giovanni Boccaccio 1344
-
Thou hast drawn all the thread out of my shift with thy gentilesse; thou hast tickled my heart with thy rebeck.
The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio Giovanni Boccaccio 1344
qms commented on the word gentilesse
Grown tired of wealth’s mental stress
He worked and he spent a bit less.
He kept all he’d bought-
His houses, his yacht-
And honed a relaxed gentilesse.
December 15, 2018