British gentleman

British gentleman

In modern parlance, a gentleman (from gentle and man, translating the Old French gentilz hom) is any man of good, courteous conduct. Originally, a gentleman was 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, it corresponds to the French gentilhomme ("nobleman"), which in Great Britain, has long meant only 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". 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:

When Adam delved and Eve span, Who was then the gentleman?

Story Reference
The Other Story Chapter One

Scene: >>>  An older gentleman sat across me. He appeared every inch how I envisioned a British gentleman to look even wore a bowler hat and had his hands folded over the handle of a black tightly wrapped umbrella .<<<