GENTRY

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does gentry mean? 

• GENTRY (noun)
  The noun GENTRY has 1 sense:

1. the most powerful members of a society

  Familiarity information: GENTRY used as a noun is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• GENTRY (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

The most powerful members of a society

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Synonyms:

aristocracy; gentry

Hypernyms ("gentry" is a kind of...):

upper class; upper crust (the class occupying the highest position in the social hierarchy)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "gentry"):

landed gentry; squirearchy (the gentry who own land (considered as a class))

 Context examples 

He broke off acquaintance with all the gentry, and shut himself up like a hermit at the Hall.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

Hill knows all these gentry, and he will give a name to him.

(The Return of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

They vas packed all round, the folks was, but down through the middle of ’em was a passage just so as the gentry could come through to their seats, and the stage it vas of wood, as the custom then vas, and a man’s ’eight above the ’eads of the people.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

As to their military affairs, they boast that the king’s army consists of a hundred and seventy-six thousand foot, and thirty-two thousand horse: if that may be called an army, which is made up of tradesmen in the several cities, and farmers in the country, whose commanders are only the nobility and gentry, without pay or reward.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

'To tell the gentry their fortunes,' she says, ma'am; and she swears she must and will do it.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

And it must be confessed, that from the great intercourse of trade and commerce between both realms, from the continual reception of exiles which is mutual among them, and from the custom, in each empire, to send their young nobility and richer gentry to the other, in order to polish themselves by seeing the world, and understanding men and manners; there are few persons of distinction, or merchants, or seamen, who dwell in the maritime parts, but what can hold conversation in both tongues; as I found some weeks after, when I went to pay my respects to the emperor of Blefuscu, which, in the midst of great misfortunes, through the malice of my enemies, proved a very happy adventure to me, as I shall relate in its proper place.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

But she could remember Bill Oliver's father a journeyman needlemaker; and th' Rivers wor gentry i' th' owd days o' th' Henrys, as onybody might see by looking into th' registers i' Morton Church vestry.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

He observed, that among the diversions of our nobility and gentry, I had mentioned gaming: he desired to know at what age this entertainment was usually taken up, and when it was laid down; how much of their time it employed; whether it ever went so high as to affect their fortunes; whether mean, vicious people, by their dexterity in that art, might not arrive at great riches, and sometimes keep our very nobles in dependence, as well as habituate them to vile companions, wholly take them from the improvement of their minds, and force them, by the losses they received, to learn and practise that infamous dexterity upon others?

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)

Well, you know Missis always said they were poor and quite despicable: and they may be poor; but I believe they are as much gentry as the Reeds are; for one day, nearly seven years ago, a Mr. Eyre came to Gateshead and wanted to see you; Missis said you were at school fifty miles off; he seemed so much disappointed, for he could not stay: he was going on a voyage to a foreign country, and the ship was to sail from London in a day or two.

(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)

By all which, instead of being discouraged, they are fifty times more violently bent upon prosecuting their schemes, driven equally on by hope and despair: that as for himself, being not of an enterprising spirit, he was content to go on in the old forms, to live in the houses his ancestors had built, and act as they did, in every part of life, without innovation: that some few other persons of quality and gentry had done the same, but were looked on with an eye of contempt and ill-will, as enemies to art, ignorant, and ill common-wealth’s men, preferring their own ease and sloth before the general improvement of their country.

(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)