Word.ws English Dictionary

gallant

/ˈɡælənt//ɡəˈlænt/

gallant adjective: brave, valiant, courteous, especially with regard to male attitudes towards women.

Adjective (1)

gallant (comparative more gallant, superlative most gallant)

  1. Brave, valiant, courteous, especially with regard to male attitudes towards women.
    • That gallant spirit hath aspired the clouds.c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and...
    • It is plain that the great majority of school children must be regarded, from the physical standpoint, as decidedly gallant little persons, who have wrestled through their infancy and have managed to come out of tribulations that have killed a large proportion of all the children of their...1907, Margaret McMillan, Labour and Childhood, page 7
  2. Honorable.
    • Captain Edward Carlisle[…]felt a curious sensation of helplessness seize upon him as he met her steady gaze,[…]; he could not tell what this prisoner might do. He cursed the fate which had assigned such a duty, cursed especially that fate which forced a gallant soldier to meet so superb a woman as...1910, Emerson Hough, chapter I, in The Purchase Price: Or The Cause of Compromise, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
  3. Grand, noble.
  4. (obsolete) Showy; splendid; magnificent; gay; well-dressed.
    • This town is built in a very gallant place.1644 March 27 (Gregorian calendar), John Evelyn, “[Diary entry for 18 March 1644]”, in William Bray, editor, Memoirs, Illustrative of the Life and Writings of John Evelyn, […], 2nd edition, volume I...
    • our royal, good and gallant ship1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published...

Adjective (2)

gallant (comparative more gallant, superlative most gallant)

  1. Polite and attentive to ladies; courteous to women; chivalrous.
    • I admire all that quaint, old-fashioned politeness; it is much more to my taste than modern ease; modern ease often disgusts me. But this good old Mr. Woodhouse, I wish you had heard his gallant speeches to me at dinner. Oh! I assure you I began to think my caro sposo would be absolutely jealous.1815, Jane Austen, Emma, volume II, chapter 17

Noun

gallant (plural gallants)

  1. (dated) A fashionable young man who is polite and attentive to women.
    • PROSPERO: […] this gallant which thou see'st / Was in the wrack; and but he's something stain'd / with grief,—that beauty's canker,—thou mightst call him / A goodly person […]1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tempest”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published...
  2. One who woos, a lover, a suitor, a seducer.
    • […] they were discovered in a very improper manner by the husband of the gypsy, who, from jealousy it seems, had kept a watchful eye over his wife, and had dogged her to the place, where he found her in the arms of her gallant.1749, Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, volume (please specify |volume=I to VI), London: A[ndrew] Millar, […], →OCLC
    • The ignominy of that whisper'd tale / About a midnight gallant, seen to climb / A window to her chamber neighbour'd near, / I will from her turn off, and put the load / On the right shoulders; on that wretch's head, […]a. 1822 (date written), John Keats, “[Tragedies.] Otho the Great: A Tragedy in Five Acts.”, in [Horace Elisha Scudder], editor, The Complete Poetical Works and Letters of John Keats, Cambridge...
  3. A topgallant.

Verb

gallant (third-person singular simple present gallants, present participle gallanting, simple past and past participle gallanted)

  1. (obsolete, transitive) To attend or wait on (a lady).
    • to gallant ladies to the play
    • During this period, we were the lions of the neighbourhood; and, no doubt, strangers from the distant villages were taken to see the "Karhowrees" (white men), in the same way that countrymen, in a city, are gallanted to the Zoological Gardens.1847 March 30, Herman Melville, Omoo: A Narrative of Adventures in the South Seas; […], London: John Murray, […], →OCLC
  2. (obsolete, transitive) To handle with grace or in a modish manner.
    • to gallant a fan
  3. (transitive) To conduct, escort, convey.
    • ... and the canoes of Vivenza, locking their yard-arms into those of the vanquished, very courteously gallanted them into their coral harbors.1849, Herman Melville, Mardi: And a Voyage Thither. […], volume II, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC
  4. To behave in a gallant fashion; to act the gallant.
    • How different is the young, fun-loving, comical, quizzing, gallanting Captain Arthur Wellesley, when residing in his shooting lodge between Summerhill and Dangan, from the stern, cautious, careworn Fabius of the Peninsular war[.]1840 February 7, The Sydney Herald, page 2, column 5

Proper noun capitalized: Gallant

Gallant (countable and uncountable, plural Gallants)

  1. A surname.
  2. A census-designated place in Etowah County and St. Clair County, Alabama, United States, named after a pioneer settler.

gallant meaning in Tamil, Urdu, Bengali and Telugu

gallant in Tamil

பொருந்தத்தன்மையுள்ள

gallant in Urdu

عاشق, بہادر, عشق باز, جوان مرد, شجاع

gallant in Bengali

বীর, সাহসী

gallant in Telugu

a gallant, beau, a handsome man
శృంగారపురుషుడు śr̥ṅgārapuruṣuḍu
More languagesFewer languages
gallant in Malayalam
സഭ്യാസാഹസികമായ, വീരം, ഗംഭീരം, പ്രേമപരമായ
gallant in Kannada
ಧೀರನಾದ, ಪರಾಕ್ರಮಶಾಲಿಯಾದ, ಧೈರ್ಯಶಾಲಿಯಾದ, ವೀರನಾದ
gallant in Sanskrit
कामुक kāmuka
gallant in Vietnamese
ga-lăng, hào hiệp

Examples of gallant in a sentence

  • By way of apology, he tried to be gallant.
  • What on earth happened to the gallant tradition of “pozzing”: making positive remarks?
  • The English gallants who came to the colony for adventure or to escape punishment were very tender-handed.

All 18 example sentences with gallant

Synonyms of gallant

30 more synonymsFewer synonyms

All synonyms of gallant

Forms of gallant

Adjective
comparativemore gallant
superlativemost gallant
alternative form (obsolete)gallaunt
Noun
pluralgallants
Verb
third-person singular presentgallants
present participlegallanting
past participlegallanted
pastgallanted
Proper noun
pluralGallants

Origin of gallant

From Middle English galant, galaunt, from Old French galant (“courteous; dashing; brave”), present participle of galer (“to rejoice; make merry”), from gale (“pomp; show; festivity; mirth”); either from Frankish *wala (“good, well”), a variant form of *wela, from Proto-Germanic *wela (whence well), from Proto-Indo-European *welh₁- (“to choose, wish”); or alternatively from Frankish *gail (“merry; mirthful; proud; luxuriant”), from Proto-Germanic *gailaz (“merry; excited; luxurious”), related to Dutch geil (“horny; lascivious; salacious; lecherous”), German geil (“randy; horny; lecherous; wicked”), Old English gāl (“wanton; wicked; bad”).

17th-century borrowing from French galant. See above.

Words formed from gallant

Phrases with gallant

Words that rhyme with gallant

Questions about gallant

What does gallant mean?
Gallant means brave, valiant, courteous, especially with regard to male attitudes towards women.
What is gallant in Tamil?
Gallant in Tamil is பொருந்தத்தன்மையுள்ள. See Gallant meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is gallant?
Gallant can be an adjective, a noun, a verb or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce gallant?
Gallant is pronounced /ˈɡælənt/.

Words near gallant in the dictionary

  1. Gallands
  2. gallane
  3. gallanes
  4. gallanilide
  5. gallanilides
  6. gallant
  7. gallant soldier
  8. gallant soldiers
  9. gallanted
  10. gallanter
  11. gallantest

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gallant (page history and authors); Gallant (page history and authors); gallant (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); gallant (Urdu Wiktionary) (page history and authors); gallant (Bengali Wiktionary) (page history and authors); శృంగారపురుషుడు (Telugu) (page history and authors); gallant (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); gallant (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Cite this entry: “gallant.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gallant. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.