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In modern parlance, the term gentleman (from Latin ''gentilis'', belonging to a race or ''gens'', and ''man'', the Italian ''gentil uomo'' or ''gentiluomo'', the French ''gentilhomme'', the Spanish ''gentilhombre'', and the Portuguese ''homem gentil'') refers to any man of good, courteous conduct. It may also refer to all men collectively, as in indications of gender-separated facilities, or as a sign of the speaker's own courtesy when addressing others. The modern female equivalent is ''lady''. In its original meaning, the term denoted a man of the lowest rank of the English gentry, standing below an esquire and above a yeoman. By definition, this category included the younger sons of the younger sons of peers and the younger sons of baronets, knights, and esquires in perpetual succession, and thus the term captures the common denominator of gentility (and often armigerousness) shared by both constituents of the English aristocracy: the peerage and the gentry. In this sense, the word equates with the French ''gentilhomme'' ("nobleman"), which latter term has been, in Great Britain, long confined to the peerage; Maurice Keen points to the category of "gentlemen" in this context as thus constituting "the nearest contemporary English equivalent of the ''noblesse'' of France".〔''Origins of the English Gentleman'' (Stroud, Tempus, 2002), p. 9.〕 The notion of "gentlemen" as encapsulating the members of the hereditary ruling class was what the rebels under John Ball in the 14th century meant when they repeated: John Selden, in ''Titles of Honour'' (1614), discussing the title ''gentleman'', likewise speaks of "our English use of it" as "convertible with ''nobilis''" (an ambiguous word, ''noble'' meaning elevated either by rank or by personal qualities) and describes in connection with it the forms of ennobling in various European countries. By social courtesy the designation came to include any well-educated man of good family and distinction, analogous to the Latin ''generosus'' (its usual translation in English-Latin documents, although ''nobilis'' is found throughout pre-Reformation papal correspondence). To a degree, ''gentleman'' came to signify a man with an income derived from property, a legacy or some other source, and was thus independently wealthy and did not need to work. The term was particularly used of those who could not claim any other title or even the rank of esquire. Widening further, it became a politeness for all men, as in the phrase ''Ladies and Gentlemen,...'' and this was then used (often with the abbreviation ''Gents'') to indicate where men could find a lavatory without the need to indicate precisely what was being described. ==Gentleman by conduct== Chaucer, in the ''Meliboeus'' (''circa'' 1386), says: "Certes he sholde not be called a gentil man, that... ne dooth his diligence and bisynesse, to kepen his good name"; and in ''The Wife of Bath's Tale'': :Loke who that is most vertuous alway :Prive and apert, and most entendeth ay :To do the gentil dedes that he can :And take him for the gretest gentilman And in the ''Romance of the Rose'' (''circa'' 1400) we find: "he is gentil bycause he doth as longeth to a gentilman." This use develops through the centuries until 1710, when we have Steele, in ''Tatler'' (No. 207), laying down that "the appellation of Gentleman is never to be affixed to a man's circumstances, but to his Behaviour in them," a limitation over-narrow even for the present day. In this connection, too, one may quote the old story, told by some—very improbably—of James II, of the monarch who replied to a lady petitioning him to make her son a gentleman, "I could make him a nobleman, but God Almighty could not make him a gentleman." Selden, however, in referring to similar stories "that no Charter can make a Gentleman, which is cited as out of the mouth of some great Princes that have said it," adds that "they without question understood Gentleman for ''Generosus'' in the antient sense, or as if it came from ''Genii/is'' in that sense, as ''Gentilis'' denotes one of a noble Family, or indeed for a Gentleman by birth." For "no creation could make a man of another blood than he is." The word ''gentleman'', used in the wide sense with which birth and circumstances have nothing to do, is necessarily incapable of strict definition. For "to behave like a gentleman" may mean little or much, according to the person by whom the phrase is used; "to spend money like a gentleman" may even be no great praise; but "to conduct a business like a gentleman" implies a high standard. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Gentleman」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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