gentle [ME] The root word shared by genteel [L16th], gentile [LME] ‘not Jewish’, and gentle is Latin gentilis ‘of a family or nation, of the same clan’, which came from gens ‘family, race’. Genteel and gentle originally had similar meanings. Genteel first meant ‘stylish, fashionable’, and ‘well bred’—the ironic or derogatory implications that it now tends to have date from the 19th century. The original sense of gentle was ‘nobly born’, from which came ‘courteous, chivalrous’, the idea behind gentleman [ME]. See also blonde. Jaunty [M17th] is an anglicization of the French for gentle, gentil and was first used to mean ‘well bred’.