Word.ws English Dictionary

gentle

Syllables: gen·tleUK/ˈd͡ʒɛn.tl̩//ˈd͡ʒɛn.tl̩/

gentle adjective: tender and amiable; of a considerate or kindly disposition.

Adjective

gentle (comparative gentler or more gentle, superlative gentlest or most gentle)

  1. Tender and amiable; of a considerate or kindly disposition.
    • Stuart is a gentle man; he would never hurt you.
    • A good heart, these days, is hard to find / So please be gentle with this heart of mine1985, Maria McKee, “A Good Heart”, performed by Feargal Sharkey
  2. Soft and mild rather than hard or severe.
    • I felt something touch my shoulder; it was gentle and a little slimy.
    • Here the stripped panelling was warmly gold and the pictures, mostly of the English school, were mellow and gentle in the afternoon light.1963, Margery Allingham, chapter 3, in The China Governess: A Mystery, London: Chatto & Windus, →OCLC
    Synonyms:
    silken
  3. Docile and easily managed.
    • We had a gentle swim in the lake.
    • a gentle horse
  4. Gradual rather than steep or sudden.
    • The walks in this area have a gentle incline.
  5. Polite and respectful rather than rude.
    • He gave me a gentle reminder that we had to hurry up.
  6. (archaic) Well-born; of a good family or respectable birth, though not noble.
    • "You are of gentle blood," she said […]1822, [Walter Scott], Peveril of the Peak. […], volume (please specify |volume=I to IV), Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC
    • British society is divided into nobility, gentry, and yeomanry, and families are either noble, gentle, or simple.1893-1897, Charles Kendall Adams (editor), Johnson's Universal Encyclopedia

Verb

gentle (third-person singular simple present gentles, present participle gentling, simple past and past participle gentled)

  1. (intransitive) To become gentle.
    • A September morning brought a stiff northeast wind that blew at 30 miles an hour and kept small craft out of the sound. But by afternoon the wind gentled and the sound smoothed.1987 October, Charles E. Cobb, Jr., “North Carolina's Outer Banks”, in National Geographic, volume 172, number 4, page 510
    • “She's experienced a horrific and nasty scare and is in a state of shock, but otherwise she's relatively okay.” Conrad replied, his tone at first grim (as he recalled what he'd seen in the family room) and then it gentled to a more doctorial tone as he directed his next comments to his patient.2013, Kathryn L.M. Reynolds, Garland Roses, Kathryn L.M. Reynolds, →ISBN, page 226
  2. (obsolete, transitive) To ennoble.
    • […] For he to-day that sheds his blood with me / Shall be my brother; be he ne'er so vile, / This day shall gentle his condition […]c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
  3. (transitive, animal husbandry) To break; to tame; to domesticate.
    • Yakima could have tried to catch him, gentle him as Wolf had been gentled, but having two stallions in his cavvy would lead to a different kind of trouble.2008, Frank Leslie, The Killing Breed, Penguin, →ISBN
  4. (transitive) To soothe; to calm; to make gentle.
    • A hornist, his playing gentled by perspective, is out of sight within the woods, but his notes are heard through or over the murmuring mix of bird song and breeze in leaves.1996, William C. Loring, An American Romantic-realist Abroad: Templeton Strong and His Music, Scarecrow Press, →ISBN, page 201

Noun

gentle (plural gentles)

  1. (archaic) A person of high birth.
    • Gentles, methinks you frown.c. 1590–1592 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Taming of the Shrew”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward]...
    • While actual medieval societies were full of lots of peasants and a few rich and noble gentles, SCA personas tend to be nobles rather than commoners.2012, Lizzie Stark, Leaving Mundania: Inside the Transformative World of Live Action Role-Playing Games, Chicago Review Press, →ISBN, page 43
  2. A maggot used as bait by anglers.
    • Pooh! the whole thing is as alive and wrigging as an angler's box of gentles1846, Douglas William Jerrold, “The History of St. Giles and St. James”, in (Please provide the book title or journal name)
    • Years ago, on Victoria's Port Phillip Bay, the recognised bait for garfish were `gentles', a genteel word for maggots, which were especially grown for gar fishermen.1983, The Fisherman Who Laughed, page 67
  3. A trained falcon, or falcon-gentil.

Proper noun capitalized: Gentle

Gentle (plural Gentles)

  1. A surname.

gentle meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

gentle in Hindi

tender and amiable
सज्जन sajjan

gentle in Tamil

சாதுவான, மென்மையான

gentle in Marathi

सौम्य

gentle in Urdu

gentle
نرم narm
More languagesFewer languages
gentle in Bengali
শিরিন śirin
gentle in Telugu
నింపాది nimpādi, నులి nuli
gentle in Malayalam
സൗമ്യമായ, ശ്രേഷ്ഠകുലജാതമായ, വിനീതമായ, കുലീനമായ
gentle in Kannada
ಮೃದುವಾದ, ಕೋಮಲ, ಮೆತ್ತನೆಯ, ಸಾಧು
gentle in Punjabi
ਹਲੀਮ halīm, ਸ਼ਰੀਫ਼ śarīf, ہولا haulā, ਹੌਲ਼ਾ hauḷā
gentle in Gujarati
સૌમ્ય
gentle in Odia
ଭଲ bhala
gentle in Sanskrit
कोमल komala, धीर dhī́ra, शान्त śāntá
gentle in Sinhala
මෙල්ල mella
gentle in Assamese
মিঠা mitha
gentle in Arabic
مُؤَدَّب muʔaddab
gentle in Malay
landai
gentle in Thai
เป็นกันเอง bpen-gan-eeng, ใจดี jai-dii, นุ่มนวล nûm-nuuan, อ่อนโยน ɔ̀ɔn-yoon
gentle in Vietnamese
nhẹ nhàng

Examples of gentle in a sentence

  • Raj took a deep breath, and reached out to give Armitage the gentlest little stroke.2012, David Walliams [pseudonym; David Edward Williams], Ratburger, London: HarperCollins Children’s Books, →ISBN:
  • Bowe said mineral sunscreens made with zinc oxide may be gentler on sensitized skin than chemical formulas.2023 December 6, Jessica DeFino, “Too Many Products Can Stress Out Your Skin. Here’s How to Scale Back.”, in The New York Times:
  • the studies wherein our noble and gentle youth ought to bestow their time[1644], [John Milton], Of Education. To Master Samuel Hartlib, [London]: […] [Thomas Underhill and/or Thomas Johnson], →OCLC:
  • ‘Gentles and fair lady, if you have suffered ill usage or hardship, I pray you lay such complaints before me[.]’1936, Norman Lindsay, The Flyaway Highway, Sydney: Angus and Robertson, page 54:

All 40 example sentences with gentle

Synonyms of gentle

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of gentle

Forms of gentle

Adjective
comparativegentler
comparativemore gentle
superlativegentlest
superlativemost gentle
Verb
third-person singular presentgentles
present participlegentling
past participlegentled
pastgentled
Noun
pluralgentles
Proper noun
pluralGentles

Origin of gentle

From Middle English gentil (“courteous, noble”), from Old French gentil (“high-born, noble”), from Latin gentilis (“of the same family or clan”), from gens (“[Roman] clan”). Doublet of gentile, genteel, and jaunty.

Words formed from gentle

Phrases with gentle

1 more phrasesFewer phrases

Words that rhyme with gentle

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about gentle

What does gentle mean?
Gentle means tender and amiable; of a considerate or kindly disposition.
What is gentle in Hindi?
Gentle in Hindi is सज्जन (sajjan). See Gentle meaning in Hindi.
How do you use gentle in a sentence?
Raj took a deep breath, and reached out to give Armitage the gentlest little stroke.
What part of speech is gentle?
Gentle can be an adjective, a verb, a noun or a proper noun.
How do you pronounce gentle?
Gentle is pronounced /ˈd͡ʒɛn.tl̩/ (UK).

Words near gentle in the dictionary

  1. gentisate
  2. gentisates
  3. gentisein
  4. gentisic acid
  5. gentisin
  6. gentle
  7. gentle and simple
  8. Gentle Annie
  9. Gentle Annies
  10. gentle as a lamb
  11. gentle breeze

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gentle (page history and authors); Gentle (page history and authors); gentle (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); gentle (Marathi, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); نرم (Urdu) (page history and authors); শিরিন (Bengali) (page history and authors); నింపాది (Telugu) (page history and authors); gentle (Malayalam Wiktionary) (page history and authors); gentle (Kannada Wiktionary) (page history and authors); ہولا (Punjabi) (page history and authors); gentle (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license); ଭଲ (Odia) (page history and authors); कोमल (Sanskrit) (page history and authors); මෙල්ල (Sinhala) (page history and authors); মিঠা (Assamese) (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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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-gentle.ogg.

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