Meaning & use
gentry
Last updated
People of high social class, especially landowners, ranking just below the nobility.
See it in a sentence
The gentry of the county gathered each autumn for the harvest ball.
Her family belonged to the rural gentry for generations.
A note on using this word
Historically used in Britain to describe well-off landowning families who were not titled nobility; now mostly used in historical or literary contexts.
Words with a similar meaning
Choose a synonym to suit the sentence. Meanings can overlap without being identical.
Words with an opposite meaning
peasantry
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