Crossword clues for gentlewoman
gentlewoman
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
The Collaborative International Dictionary
Gentlewoman \Gen"tle*wom`an\, n.; pl. Gentlewomen.
A woman of good family or of good breeding; a woman above the vulgar.
--Bacon.A woman who attends a lady of high rank.
--Shak.
Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Wiktionary
n. (context historical English) A woman of the nobility.
WordNet
Wikipedia
A gentlewoman (from the Latin gentilis, belonging to a gens, and English 'woman') in the original and strict sense is a woman of good family, analogous to the Latin generosus and generosa. The closely related English word " gentry" derives from the Old French genterise, gentelise, with much of the meaning of the French noblesse and the German Adel, but without the strict technical requirements of those traditions, such as quarters of nobility.
By association with gentleman, the word can refer to:
- A woman of gentle birth or high social position;
- A woman attending a great lady (as, for example, the character in William Shakespeare's Macbeth called only 'Gentlewoman', who attends Lady Macbeth). This might be a court appointment as the female equivalent to a valet de chambre.
- A woman with good manners and high standards of behaviour.
Usage examples of "gentlewoman".
You, who have had all sorts of comforts, have always lived as a gentlewoman.
These rotten feet of thine ran well enough, but they cannot walke: thou couldest mince it finely even now with the gentlewoman, that thou seemedst to passe the horse Pegasus in swiftnesse.
Thus attended, the hapless mourner entered the place, and, according to the laudable hospitality of England, which is the only country in Christendom where a stranger is not made welcome to the house of God, this amiable creature, emaciated and enfeebled as she was, must have stood in a common passage during the whole service, had not she been perceived by a humane gentlewoman, who, struck with her beauty and dignified air, and melted with sympathy at the ineffable sorrow which was visible in her countenance, opened the pew in which she sat, and accommodated Monimia and her attendant.
She is a gentlewoman by birth, has nursed for me before, and is well up in the special knowledge of mental things which this case requires.
Then, with her attendants and Maiwenna the Talith gentlewoman and young Rosamonde of Roxburgh, she would ride out in a coach from the Royal Mews, through countryside green-hazed with the buds of an early Spring.
Chapter 24 Their betters were invited to sup at the house of a gentleman of Darlington, where the earl and countess of Westmorland would lodge, but the waiting gentlewomen and lesser female servants made do with what a harried and overburdened innkeeper could supply for their supper.
Then he desired to see her, whereupon the Gentlewoman was brought forth fast bound, whom as soone as he beheld, he turned himselfe wringing his nose, and blamed them saying : I am not so much a beast, or so rash a fellow to drive you quite from your purpose, but my conscience will not suffer me to conceale any thing that toucheth your profit, since I am as carefull for you, howbeit if my counsell doe displease you, you may at your liberty proceed in your enterprise.
Had kind fate but willed her to be born a gentlewoman of high degree in her own right and had she only received the benefit of a good education Gerty MacDowell might easily have held her own beside any lady in the land and have seen herself exquisitely gowned with jewels on her brow and patrician suitors at her feet vying with one another to pay their devoirs to her.
In the afternoon the gentlewoman talked violently against the Roman Catholicks, and of the horrours of the Inquisition.
And when they had passed the port, the gentlewoman said: Lords, here be men arriven that, an they wist that ye were of King Arthur's court, ye should be assailed anon.
I was made to be a Turk, watching oriental houris all day long, executing those exquisite Egyptian dances, as sensuous as the dream of a chaste man, or a Beauceron peasant, or a Venetian gentleman surrounded by gentlewoman, or a petty German prince, furnishing the half of a foot-soldier to the Germanic confederation, and occupying his leisure with drying his breeches on his hedge, that is to say, his frontier.
I shall say you, said Sir Gawaine, it beseemeth evil a good knight to despise all ladies and gentlewomen, and peradventure though he hate you he hath some certain cause, and peradventure he loveth in some other places ladies and gentlewomen, and to be loved again, an he be such a man of prowess as ye speak of.
Born as low as any of these bullies' serfs, and she's a gentlewoman by birth, a squire's daughter, the equal of a baron on any world where they remember the old aristocratic titles!
I take no force though I have both their heads, for he slew my brother, a good knight and a true, and that gentlewoman was causer of my father's death.
And at the last by fortune him happened, against a night, to come to a fair courtelage, and therein he found an old gentlewoman that lodged him with good will, and there he had good cheer for him and his horse.