gent

• IPA^(key): /d͡ʒɛnt/

  • Audio (Southern England):

    (file)

• 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 Miller’s Tale”, in The Canterbury Tales, [Westminster: William Caxton, published 1478], →OCLC; Charles Cowden Clarke, editor, The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer. […], 2nd edition, volume (please specify |volume=I, II, or III), Edinburgh: James Nichol; London: James Nisbet & Co.; Dublin: W. Robertson, 1860, →OCLC:

     Her body gent and small.

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

gent (uncountable)

1. (medicine, colloquial) Clipping of gentamicin.

• Teng

Inherited from Old Catalan gent, from Latin gentem, from Proto-Indo-European *ǵénh₁tis.

• IPA^(key): (Central) [ˈʒen]
• IPA^(key): (Balearic) [ˈʒent]
• IPA^(key): (Valencia) [ˈd͡ʒent]

• Audio (Barcelona):

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• Rhymes: -ent

gent f (uncountable)

1. people, folk

   bona gent ― good people

• gentada
• gentalla
• genteta

• “gent”, in Diccionari de la llengua catalana [Dictionary of the Catalan Language] (in Catalan), second edition, Institute of Catalan Studies [Catalan: Institut d'Estudis Catalans], April 2007
• “gent”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2025
• “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.

• IPA^(key): /ɣɛnt/

From Middle Dutch gent, from Old Dutch *genit, variant of *ganut, from Proto-West Germanic *ganut, from Proto-Germanic *ganutaz.

gent m (plural genten, diminutive gentje n)

1. (now rare) gander, male goose

   Synonyms: mannetjesgans, ganzerik, gander

• jan-van-gent

Back-formation from jan-van-gent.

gent m (plural genten, diminutive gentje n)

1. (taxonomy) bird of the Sulidae family

   De genten vormen een familie in de orde der Suliformes. ― The Sulidae constitute a family in the Suliformes order.

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

• IPA^(key): /ʒɑ̃/

• Audio (France (Toulouse)):

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• Audio (France (Vosges)):

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gent f (plural gens)

1. (archaic) people, nation

   gent féminine ― women, womankind

   gent masculine ― men

   gent mercantile ― merchants

   gent moutonnière ― sheep (people who blindly follow others)

2. (archaic) race, species (of animals)

   gent aviaire ― birds

   gent canine ― canines

   gent féline ― felines

   gent marécageuse ― amphibians, marsh-dwellers

   gent trotte-menu ― rodents

   gent volaille ― poultry

3. (archaic) tribe
4. company, those who are in accompaniment

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

1. (archaic 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.

gent

1. noble; well-bred, courteous; graceful
   • 1387–1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Ryme of Syr Thopas”, 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:

     Al of a knight was fayre & gent

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

• 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.

• jant, גֿאנט (ǧʔnt /⁠jant⁠/) (Judeo-French)

gent oblique singular, 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 m pl
• Norman: gens m pl
• Walloon: djin m pl

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. indefinite neuter singular of gen

gent

1. alternative form of geint

• Jacob Poole (d. 1827) (before 1828), 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, published 1867, page 41