Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- adjective Refined or polite, often in an affected way: synonym: polite.
- adjective Typical or characteristic of the upper class.
- adjective Elegantly stylish or fashionable.
from The Century Dictionary.
- Polite; well-bred; decorous in manners or behavior; refined: as, genteel company.
- Adapted to, suitable for, or characteristic of polite society; free from vulgarity or meanness in appearance, quality, amount, etc.; elegant; becoming; adequate: as, genteel manners; a genteel address; genteel comedy; a genteel income or allowance.
- Fashionable; stylish; à la mode.
- Synonyms Genteel, Polite, well-mannered, polished. Genteel refers to the outward chiefly; polite to the outward as an expression of inward refinement and kindness. Genteel has latterly tended to express a somewhat fastidious pride of refinement, family position, and the like. Genteel is often largely negative, meaning free from what is low, vulgar, or connected with the uncultivated classes; polite is positive and active, meaning that one acts in a certain way. Polite has, however, a passive meaning, that of ‘polished’: as, polite society, polite literature. See
polite .
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- adjective Possessing or exhibiting the qualities popularly regarded as belonging to high birth and breeding; free from vulgarity, or lowness of taste or behavior; adapted to a refined or cultivated taste; polite; well-bred.
- adjective Graceful in mien or form; elegant in appearance, dress, or manner.
Law . - adjective Suited to the position of lady or a gentleman.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- adjective
Polite andwell-mannered . - adjective
Stylish orelegant . - adjective
Aristocratic
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- adjective marked by refinement in taste and manners
Etymologies
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License
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Examples
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Her cousins made game of what they called her genteel visitor.
Granny's Wonderful Chair Frances Browne
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The Haitian tragedy has opened up a whole new industry for what I call the genteel racist point of view.
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The Haitian tragedy has opened up a whole new industry for what I call the genteel racist point of view.
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This was the phrase genteel officials at the school used to explain to the very proper and very perturbed parents of India’s towheaded classmates why a white, British woman and her Welsh husband had a half-black child.
One Flight Up Susan Fales-Hill 2010
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This was the phrase genteel officials at the school used to explain to the very proper and very perturbed parents of India’s towheaded classmates why a white, British woman and her Welsh husband had a half-black child.
One Flight Up Susan Fales-Hill 2010
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And its politics have always had a certain genteel character -- with each Election Day followed by Return Day, a public festival of reconciliation culminated by a parade honoring the winners and losers together.
David Paul: First Amendment Be Damned, Christine O'Donnell Is Staying on Message David Paul 2010
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And its politics have always had a certain genteel character -- with each Election Day followed by Return Day, a public festival of reconciliation culminated by a parade honoring the winners and losers together.
David Paul: First Amendment Be Damned, Christine O'Donnell Is Staying on Message David Paul 2010
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And its politics have always had a certain genteel character -- with each Election Day followed by Return Day, a public festival of reconciliation culminated by a parade honoring the winners and losers together.
David Paul: First Amendment Be Damned, Christine O'Donnell Is Staying on Message David Paul 2010
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He and his mother lived in genteel poverty as the wards of a prosperous (if somewhat tightfisted) uncle.
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HPL lived and died in genteel poverty, and some biographers have suggested that poor diet brought on by poverty may have hastened his death.
Someone Is Angry On the Internet grrm 2010
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