gent

English

English Wikipedia has an article on:

gent

Wikipedia

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /d͡ʒɛnt/

  • Audio (Southern England)

    (file)

• Rhymes: -ɛnt
• Homophone: djent

Etymology 1

Short for gentleman.

Noun

gent (plural gents)

1. (colloquial) A gentleman.

Derived terms

• city gent
• ladies and gents

Related terms

• genteel
• gentile
• gentle

Etymology 2

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

Adjective

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, , →OCLC; Charles Cowden Clarke, editor, The Canterbury Tales of Chaucer. , 2nd edition, volumes (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)

Etymology 3

Noun

gent (uncountable)

1. (medicine, colloquial) Short for gentamicin.

Anagrams

• Teng

Catalan

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): (Central)
• IPA^(key): (Balearic)
• IPA^(key): (Valencian)
• Rhymes: -ent

Noun

gent f (uncountable)

1. people, folk

   bona gent ― good people

Derived terms

• gentada
• gentalla
• genteta

Further reading

• “gent” in Diccionari de la llengua catalana, segona edició, Institut d’Estudis Catalans.
• “gent”, in Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana, Grup Enciclopèdia Catalana, 2024
• “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.

Dutch

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ɣɛnt/

Etymology 1

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

Noun

gent m (plural genten, diminutive gentje n)

1. (now rare) gander, male goose

   Synonyms: mannetjesgans, ganzerik

Derived terms

• jan-van-gent

Etymology 2

Back-formation from jan-van-gent.

Noun

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.

French

Etymology

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

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ʒɑ̃/

• Audio

  (file)

Noun

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

Adjective

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

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

Further reading

• “gent”, in Trésor de la langue française informatisé , 2012.

Middle Dutch

Etymology

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. The name could otherwise be of non-Indo-European origin.

Noun

gent ?

1. Ghent (a city in modern Belgium)

Inflection

This noun needs an inflection-table template.

Descendants

• Dutch: Gent

References

Further reading

• “ghent”, in Vroegmiddelnederlands Woordenboek, 2000

Middle English

gent

1. noble; well-bred, courteous; graceful
   • 1387–1400, Geoffrey Chaucer, “The Ryme of Syr Thopas”, in The Canterbury Tales, , →OCLC; republished in [William Thynne], editor, The Workes of Geffray Chaucer Newlye Printed, , : [Richard Grafton for] Iohn Reynes , 1542, →OCLC:

     Al of a knight was fayre & gent

     (please add an English translation of this quotation)

Old French

Pronunciation

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

Etymology 1

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

Noun

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

Descendants

• French: gens m pl
• Norman: gens m pl
• Walloon: djin m pl

Etymology 2

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

Adjective

gent m (oblique and nominative feminine singular gente)

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

   Synonym: gentil

Usage notes

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.

Declension

Related terms

• gençor (comparative), also spelled gensor

Swedish

Adjective

gent

1. indefinite neuter singular of gen

Yola

Noun

gent

1. Alternative form of geint

References

• 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