Gentleman [ Taste & Manners / Politics & Society ]
… who was a gentleman and the forms of sociability that were indeed appropriate underwent a shift during the century. Traditionally, a gentleman had been a patrician, a man of lineage, a member of the nobility or gentry who derived his … of the English Language , first published in 1755, captured this societal change. The leading definition was the traditional one: ‘A man of Ancestry’. Definition 2 was rather more capacious: ‘A man raised above the vulgar by his … of Elizabeth Marsh: A Woman in World History (London: HarperPress, 2007), p. 23. The social behaviour expected of the traditional, patrician gentleman was not very different from the stylish oratory and elegant self-presentation set out in …
Benevolence | Middling sort | Politeness | Rank
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