Gentleman - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition gentleman

Definition :

Gentleman [fr. gentilhomme, Fr.; gentilhuomo, Ital., i.e., homo gentilis, Lat., a man of ancestry, however high his rank]. All persons above yeomen; whereby noblemen are truly called gentlemen, Smith de Rep. Ang., 1. 1, cc. xx., xxi.

The word was not employed as a legal addition until about the time of Henry V. It has no precise legal meaning, but is used to designate a man of independent means and no occupation who is not entitled to 'esquire.'

To describe the giver (a clerk in the Audit Office) of a bill of sale (see that title) as a gentleman was held an insufficient description in Allen v. Thompson, (1856) 1 H. & N. 15; and so of a deponent to the fitness of a proposed new trustee in Re Orde, (1883) 24 Ch D 271