gentlehood

English

Etymology

From gentle +‎ -hood.

Noun

gentlehood (uncountable)

1. The state of being of good or gentle birth; good breeding.
   • 1860 January – 1861 April, Anthony Trollope, “The Philistines at the Parsonage”, in Framley Parsonage. […] (Collection of British Authors; 551), copyright edition, volume I, Leipzig: Bernhard Tauchnitz, published April 1861, →OCLC, page 250:

     There was yet within him the means of repentance, could a locus penitentiæ^[sic] have been supplied to him. He grieved bitterly over his own ill doings, and knew well what changes gentlehood would have demanded from him.

   • 1888, Walter Besant, “The Council in the House”, in The Inner House, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC, page 141:

     When we allowed gentlehood to be destroyed, gentle manners, honour, dignity, and such old virtues went too.