gent

• IPA^(key): /d͡ʒɛnt/

  • Audio (UK)

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• Rhymes: -ɛnt
• Homophone: djent

Short for gentleman.

gent (plural gents)

1. (colloquial) A gentleman.

• city gent
• ladies and gents

• genteel
• gentile
• gentle

From Middle English gent, from Old French gent, ultimately from Latin genitum (“born”).

gent (comparative more gent, superlative most gent)

1. (obsolete) Noble; well-bred, courteous; graceful.
   • 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book I, Canto IX”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:

     He lou'd, as was his lot, a Ladie gent, / That him againe lou'd in the least degree […]

2. (obsolete) neat; pretty; elegant
   • 1387–1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Myllers Tale”, in The Canterbury Tales, [Westminster: William Caxton, published 1478], →OCLC; republished in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, […], [London]: […] [Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes […], 1542, →OCLC:

     Her body gent and small.

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gent (uncountable)

1. (medicine, colloquial) Short for gentamicin.

• Teng

From Old Catalan gent, from Latin gēns, gentis, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵénh₁tis.

• (Balearic) IPA^(key): /ˈʒent/
• (Central) IPA^(key): /ˈʒen/
• (Valencian) IPA^(key): /ˈd͡ʒent/
• Rhymes: -ent

gent f (uncountable)

1. people, folk

   bona gent ― good people

• gentada
• gentalla
• genteta

• “gent” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “gent”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2023
• “gent” in Diccionari normatiu valencià, Acadèmia Valenciana de la Llengua.
• “gent” in Diccionari català-valencià-balear, Antoni Maria Alcover and Francesc de Borja Moll, 1962.

From Old French gent, from Latin gens, gentem. Cf. gens.

• IPA^(key): /ʒɑ̃/

• Audio

  (file)

gent f (plural gens)

1. (obsolete) people, nation

   gent aviaire

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   gent canine

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   gent féline

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   gent féminine

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   gent masculine

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   gent marécageuse

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   gent mercantile

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   gent moutonnière

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   gent trotte-menu

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   gent volaille

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2. (obsolete) tribe
3. company, those who are in accompaniment

gent (feminine gente, masculine plural gents, feminine plural gentes)

1. (obsolete or humorous) nice, pleasant, or noble, speaking of a person or thing

• “gent”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé [Digitized Treasury of the French Language], 2012.

From earlier Ganda; if from Celtic, possibly from Proto-Celtic *kom-dati (“confluence”), from Proto-Indo-European *kom-dʰh₁-ti- (“confluence”), equivalent to *ḱóm + *dʰeh₁- (similar to the town Condivincum); or related to the Celtic goddess Gontia.[1] The name could otherwise be of non-Indo-European origin.[2]

gent ?

1. Ghent (a city in modern Belgium)

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

• Dutch: Gent

• “ghent”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek, 2000

• IPA^(key): (early) /ˈd͡ʒɛ̃nt/
• IPA^(key): (late) /ˈʒãnt/

From Latin gentem, accusative singular of gēns. The nominative singular descends from a regularized form: oblique stem gent- and 3rd declension nominative -is.

gent f (oblique plural genz or gentz, nominative singular gent, nominative plural genz or gentz)

1. people, population

   la Franceise gent - the French people

• French: gens
• Norman: gens
• Walloon: djin

From Latin genitus (“begotten”), perfect passive participle of gignō.

gent m (oblique and nominative feminine singular gente)

1. fair, beautiful, handsome
2. brave and beautiful
3. polite

   Synonym: gentil

The Dictionnaire Étymologique de l'Ancien Français points out the difficulty of translating this word into modern languages. The adjective describes an ideal person in a given context: brave warriors in chansons de geste, loyal good men in tales of courtly love, polite people in all occasions, who are always handsome or beautiful. It also notes the meaning 'well-born, aristocratic', mentioned in some dictionaries of Old French, is extremely rarely attested.

• gençor (comparative), also spelled gensor

gent

1. absolute indefinite neuter singular of gen.

gent

1. Alternative form of geint

• Jacob Poole (1867), William Barnes, editor, A Glossary, With some Pieces of Verse, of the old Dialect of the English Colony in the Baronies of Forth and Bargy, County of Wexford, Ireland, London: J. Russell Smith, page 41