Word.ws English Dictionary

gentlehood

gentlehood noun: the state of being of good or gentle birth; good breeding.

Noun

gentlehood (uncountable)

  1. The state of being of good or gentle birth; good breeding.
    • There was yet within him the means of repentance, could a locus penitentiæ^([sic]) have been supplied to him. He grieved bitterly over his own ill doings, and knew well what changes gentlehood would have demanded from him.1860 January – 1861 April, Anthony Trollope, “The Philistines at the Parsonage”, in Framley Parsonage. […] (Collection of British Authors; 551), copyright edition, volume I, Leipzig: Bernhard...
    • When we allowed gentlehood to be destroyed, gentle manners, honour, dignity, and such old virtues went too.1888, Walter Besant, “The Council in the House”, in The Inner House, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC, page 141

Origin of gentlehood

From gentle + -hood.

Questions about gentlehood

What does gentlehood mean?
Gentlehood means the state of being of good or gentle birth; good breeding.
What part of speech is gentlehood?
Gentlehood is a noun.

Words near gentlehood in the dictionary

  1. gentlegirls
  2. gentlehanded
  3. gentlehearted
  4. gentleheartedly
  5. gentleheartedness
  6. gentlehood
  7. gentleladies
  8. gentlelady
  9. gentleman
  10. gentleman about town
  11. gentleman and scholar

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: gentlehood (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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