How to Use gentry in a Sentence

gentry

noun
  • Bloomberg sometimes says things that gentry liberals aren’t supposed to say out loud.
    — Michael Brendan Dougherty, National Review, 19 Feb. 2020
  • But to assume the weekend was all the sanctum of the media landed gentry would be to assume wrong.
    — Steven Zeitchik, HollywoodReporter, 27 Apr. 2025
  • The gentry is lighter-toned and obsessed with skin bleaching, and the maji have been reduced to serfdom and slavery.
    — Vann R. Newkirk Ii, The Atlantic, 6 Mar. 2018
  • At each resting place, the queen was entertained by the local gentry with fêtes, balls, music and feasting.
    — Judith Flanders, WSJ, 5 Oct. 2018
  • And the twins did seem determined to be identified as Southern gentry.
    — Jennifer Szalai, New York Times, 4 Apr. 2018
  • Like the gentry of old, Britain’s new class of landlords is often amateurish.
    — The Economist, 12 Dec. 2017
  • Southern gentry, though, Houston was not willing to shed blood to expand slavery.
    — Jeffrey L. Littlejohn, Chron, 11 Mar. 2021
  • The confident brother is landed gentry and wants to buy Thea's house, which abuts his property.
    — Laurie Hertzel, Star Tribune, 7 May 2021
  • The Hobbits were white, because they were based on the English middle class rural gentry.
    — Razib Khan, Discover Magazine, 7 Dec. 2010
  • Studies over the years have indicated that the rich, unlike the leisured gentry of old, tend to work longer hours and spend less time socializing.
    — Alex Williams, New York Times, 18 Oct. 2019
  • John Betteridge was a silversmith who made snuff boxes and match holders for the English gentry.
    — Paige Reddinger, Robb Report, 9 Nov. 2021
  • The talk, illustrated with slides that include paintings of the time, will explore Austen’s world and the life of country gentry at that time.
    — Carole Goldberg, courant.com, 7 Mar. 2018
  • Yet the distrust between the factions was made toxic by class snobbery and hatred, since the Woodvilles were a mere gentry family.
    — Andrew Roberts, WSJ, 30 Apr. 2018
  • The city boomed, but voters forgot the bad old days, and the combination of public unions and the gentry left took charge of the political debate.
    — The Editorial Board, WSJ, 18 June 2021
  • Potter was in his mid-30s, and this brazen impetuousness caused much huffing among the gentry (the face tattoos, perhaps, of his time).
    — Jason O'Bryan, Robb Report, 7 Oct. 2021
  • Because the imperial bureaucracy wasn’t large and did not penetrate to small towns or villages, much of local life was run by this gentry.
    — Ian Johnson, The Atlantic, 27 Mar. 2025
  • Chekhov’s milieu was that of the Russian gentry, living elevated lives in rural settings.
    — Patrick Iber, The New Republic, 12 Jan. 2023
  • Tales in Blackman’s history bear out the image of sons of the gentry confronting the wild Florida frontier.
    — Joy Wallace Dickinson, OrlandoSentinel.com, 25 Feb. 2018
  • The local gentry would marshal the peasants, laborers and tribesmen into polls that would choose each Parliament.
    — Reuel Marc Gerecht and, WSJ, 11 June 2018
  • One is that high turnout now probably helps Republicans and hurts Democrats, whose gentry liberals vote no matter what.
    — Michael Barone, Orange County Register, 14 Feb. 2024
  • One of the half novels offers a familiar, wryly satirical portrait of callow members of the British gentry.
    — Judith Shulevitz, The Atlantic, 30 Jan. 2024
  • GoPro may be going bust, while Jawbone, Nest and other members of the gentry of gadget pageantry look just about ready to stick a fork into.
    — Farhad Manjoo, New York Times, 7 Dec. 2016
  • Henry’s power grab angered the wealthy gentry, who launched a violent uprising known as the Pilgrimage of Grace.
    — Nuri Heckler, Smithsonian Magazine, 13 Jan. 2023
  • And the tone, a kind of perky gravity that sits well on the early-20th-century British gentry, is a more awkward fit in a story set in the midst of a war over slavery.
    — Mike Hale, New York Times, 15 Jan. 2016
  • The physician Galen would recall a member of the Roman gentry who accidentally drank a leech when his servant drew water from a public fountain.
    — Edward Watts, Smithsonian Magazine, 28 Apr. 2020
  • In West Virginia terms, Manchin has been a member of the gentry—corporate, political, and personal—for decades.
    — Evan Osnos, The New Yorker, 20 Dec. 2021
  • Washington Square Park, in the gentry liberal oasis of Greenwich Village, is often an open-air drug market.
    — Mene Ukueberuwa, WSJ, 4 June 2021
  • Italian hand gestures and accents as thick as Sunday gravy are interspersed among the older gentry, but there’s a distinct GI ring to this theatrical milieu.
    — Charles McNultytheater Critic, Los Angeles Times, 13 Feb. 2023
  • All along the route they were surrounded by peasants who stared in wonder at Liang and Lin, unable to conceive of Chinese gentry taking an interest in their rural world.
    — Stefen Chow, Smithsonian, 2 May 2017
  • All along the route they were surrounded by peasants who stared in wonder at Liang and Lin, unable to conceive of Chinese gentry taking an interest in their rural world.
    — Stefen Chow, Smithsonian, 30 Sep. 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'gentry.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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