GENTLEMAN (OF., Fr. gentilhomme, ML. gentilis homo, man of breeding, from La.t. gentilis, relating to a family, from gens, family, and homo, man). Originally, a person whose kindred was known and acknowledged; which is the sense in which it is still employed when it is not in tended to make any reference to the moral and social qualities of the particular individual. One who was sine gente, on the other hand, was one whom no Bens acknowledged, and who might thus be said to he ignobly born.
The term gentleman is often confounded with esquire (q.v.), but they are not equivalent, and the former seems in England, from a very early time, to have been a mere social epithet. But even in the beginning of the seventeenth century the word was still held to have a stricter mean ing, in which it was more nearly synopymous with the French gentilhomme, as denoting those whose blood and race were noble and known. Even here, however, it scarcely seems that any connection with a titled family was considered necessary to confer the character. for it is de scribed as corresponding, not to nobility, in the English sense, but to nobilitas, in the Roman sense, and as resting on "old riches or powers in one stock." There can be no doubt
that, in still earlier times, patents of gentility were granted by the King of England. There is one still in existence by Richard II. to John de Kingston, and another by Henry VI. to Bernard Angevin, of Bordeaux. These patents correspond ed to the modern patents of arms which are issued by the heralds' colleges in England and Ireland, and by the Lyon office in Scotland, and were probably given on the payment of fees. A patent of arms confers the rank of esquire, and there probably is no other legal mode by which an untitled person can acquire it, unless he be the holder of a dignified office. The phrase, however, is loosely applied to all persons who have not themselves 'risen from the ranks,' or in a still less limited sense to those who, whatever their origin, display the qualities associated with `gentle' birth.