Definition of country gentleman in English:

country gentleman


  • A rich man of good social standing who owns and lives in a large rural property.

    • ‘As a conciliator, his capacity for ascertaining and implementing the views of the typical country gentleman was outstanding.’
    • ‘Somehow, though, he found his voice and his nerve, and bowed to her like the country gentleman he once was.’
    • ‘He had a British rival, Thomas Young, who was a country gentleman, a man of many parts, a Renaissance man; who wasn't this obsessed fanatic: a scholar.’
    • ‘‘We've become country gentlemen,’ laughs the dancer.’
    • ‘Can we look in the window of the country gentleman and ladies?’
    • ‘He then lived as a country gentleman, hunting and playing cricket while also publishing small volumes of poetry, often privately.’
    • ‘Most wealthy young gentlemen were too busy trying to find a young lady of suitable wealth and position to bother with the daughters of country gentlemen.’
    • ‘A small act of defiance against an allegedly urban-dominated parliament's desire to consign the country gentleman's ‘sport’ of fox-hunting to history.’
    • ‘Elizabeth Bennet is a country gentleman's daughter in 19th Century England.’
    • ‘His studies were interrupted by the Civil War so that throughout the 1650s and 1660s he lived as a country gentleman in Wiltshire.’
    • ‘When these lot turn up in their plus fours, they out-country-gent the country gentlemen.’
    • ‘Rochester is a swarthy, middle-aged, rich country gentleman, with a wife locked up in a secret chamber in his house.’
    • ‘Contrary to my expectations, he was every inch the country gentleman, a charming and solicitous host.’
    • ‘On the other hand, professional men, merchants, and town governors became bolder in asserting that they were as good as the country gentleman and were entitled to his title of respect.’
    • ‘He was from a Scottish landowning family, and after serving in the Peninsular War he returned to Britain to the life of a country gentleman.’
    • ‘Contrary to the quiet country gentleman image most wine producers like to project, those from the most famous wine making districts are usually savvy and experienced business people.’
    • ‘He is a country gentleman, and I think that's worked out to be a positive.’
    • ‘Tonight I ought to go out as a British country gentleman and find companions wholly unsuitable to my station.’
    landowner, landholder, landlord, lord of the manor
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country gentleman

/ˈkəntrē ˈjen(t)lmən/