gentle

1. 1

   Tender and amiable; of a considerate or kindly disposition.

   • Stuart is a gentle man; he would never hurt you.
2. 2

   Soft and mild rather than hard or severe.

   • I felt something touch my shoulder; it was gentle and a little slimy.
3. 3

   Docile and easily managed.

   • We had a gentle swim in the lake.
   • a gentle horse
4. 4

   Gradual rather than steep or sudden.

   • The walks in this area have a gentle incline.
5. 5

   Polite and respectful rather than rude.

   • He gave me a gentle reminder that we had to hurry up.
6. 6

   Well-born; of a good family or respectable birth, though not noble.archaic

   • 1893-1897, Charles Kendall Adams (editor), Johnson's Universal Encyclopedia British society is divided into nobility, gentry, and yeomanry, and families are either noble, gentle, or simple.

syn. friendly · kind · polite · respectful

ant. rude

1. 1

   To become gentle.intransitive

   • 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.
2. 2

   To ennoble.obsoletetransitive

   • […] 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 […]
3. 3

   To break; to tame; to domesticate.transitive

   • 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.
4. 4

   To soothe; to calm; to make gentle.transitive

   • 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.

1. 1

   A person of high birth.archaic

   • Gentles, methinks you frown.
   • 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.
2. 2

   A maggot used as bait by anglers.

   • Pooh! the whole thing is as alive and wrigging as an angler's box of gentles
   • 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.
3. 3

   A trained falcon, or falcon-gentil.