English

Alternative forms

• gentile

Noun

Gentile ‎(plural Gentiles)

1. Alternative letter-case form of gentile (a non-Jewish person).
2. (Mormonism) A non-Mormon person (including Jews).

External links

• Gentile on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

English

Alternative forms

• Gentile

Adjective

gentile ‎(not comparable)

1. Non-Jewish.
   • 1711, [John Hildrop], “The Preface”, in A Treatise of the Three Evils of the Last Times: I. The Sword, II. The Pestilence, III. The Famine; and of Their Natural and Moral Causes. As also of the Ensuing Coming of Antichrist; According to the Notion of the Ancient Fathers, London: Printed by M. J. for R[obert] Knaplock at the Bishop's-Head, R. and J. Bonwicke at the Red-Lion, and H. Clements at the Half-Moon in St. Paul's Church-Yard, OCLC 642296075, pages lxxiv–lxxv:

     This ſhall bring down the Judgment upon Rome, preſently after the Appearance of Antichriſt: and as upon Rome, ſo aſso upon all the Gentile Chriſtians, who have a Name to live but are dead, being fallen away from their Firſt Love and Faith, and ſo having made themſelves Veſſels fit for Deſtruction, when this ſore Judgment ſhall go forth.

   • 1847, William Kelly, “Introduction”, in A Grammar of Gregorian, or Plain Chant Music, London: Thomas Richardson and Son, 173, Fleet Street; 9 Capel Street, Dublin; & Derby, OCLC 629918822, pages 11–12:

     If we read the Epistles of St. Paul, we shall soon discover what efforts the Jewish converts made to bring the Gentile converts into the observance of every Jewish custom compatible with christianity:^[sic] and as we do not discover in those Epistles any traces of a dispute on this head between the Jewish and Gentile converts, we may fairly conclude that the Gentile converts adopted without hesitation the time-honoured manner of praising the true God made use of by the Jewish converts, instead of the Pagan mode of singing, which was then associated in their minds with every thing unclean and abominable.

   • 2001, E[d] P[arish] Sanders, “Jesus in Galilee”, in Doris Donnelly, editor, Jesus: A Colloquium in the Holy Land, New York, N.Y.; London: Continuum International Publishing Group, ISBN 978-0-8264-1307-9, page 14:

     There is further evidence of the fact that both Romans and the Herodians distinguished Jewish from Gentile areas and treated them differently. Herod did not produce pagan coins, bearing an image of Augustus or himself, but rather good Jewish coins. It is noteworthy that he built numerous pagan buildings, including temples honouring Augustus and an amphitheater for Greek games, and he donated gymnasia to territories that he did not govern: […] But (and this is a very big "but") he put none of these Gentile/pagan buildings in the Jewish parts of his domain.

2. Heathen, pagan.
   • 2013, Marion Gibson, Imagining the Pagan Past: Gods and Goddesses in Literature and History since the Dark Ages, Abingdon, Oxon.; New York, N.Y.: Routledge, ISBN 978-0-415-67418-8, page 26:

     [John] Bale, following Annius [Annio da Viterbo], argued that druids, bards and other ‘gentile’ (pagan) priests had preserved from Noah’s time the memory of a true religion that believed ‘that there is one God, immortal and incomprehensible’ (‘unum esse Deum immortalem, et incomprehensibilem ...’).

3. Relating to a clan, tribe, or nation; clannish, tribal, national.
   • 1902, Frederick Engels; Ernest Untermann, transl., The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, Chicago, Ill.: C. H. Kerr & Co., OCLC 22401892:

     As distinct from the old gentile order, the state, first, divides its subjects according to territory. As we have seen, the old gentile associations, built upon and held together by ties of blood, became inadequate, largely because they presupposed that the members were bound to a given territory, a bond which had long ceased to exist. The territory remained, but the people had become mobile. Hence, division according to territory was taken as the point of departure, and citizens were allowed to exercise their public rights and duties wherever they settled, irrespective of gens and tribe.

   • 1990, Leo Gumilëv, Ethnogenesis and the Biosphere, Moscow: Progress Publishers, ISBN 978-501002010-1, page 85:

     It is possible to manage without a gentile system. Many ethnoi are divided into tribes and clans.

4. Of or pertaining to a gens or several gentes.
   • 1877, Lewis H[enry] Morgan, Ancient Society, or, Researches in the Lines of Human Progress from Savagery through Barbarism to Civilization, New York, N.Y.: University of Arizona Press, OCLC 2771519, pages 84–85:

     The council was the great feature of ancient society, Asiatic, European and American, from the institution of the gens in savagery to civilization. […] As the council sprang from the gentile organization the two institutions have come down together through the ages. The Council of Chiefs represents the ancient method of evolving the wisdom of mankind and applying it to human affairs. Its history, gentile, tribal, and confederate, would express the growth of the idea of government in its whole development, until political society supervened into which the council, changed into a senate, was transmitted.

   • 2011, Robin Fox, The Tribal Imagination: Civilization and the Savage Mind, Cambridge, Mass.; London: Harvard University Press, ISBN 978-0-674-05901-6, page 300:

     He [Lewis Henry Morgan] was anxious to look for the origins of the crucial "stage" that he found exemplified in his beloved Iroquois and the North American Indians generally, that of the gentes. […] Morgan called this gens or clan stage, perhaps confusingly, the stage of gentile society. His discovery that this form of what we would now call "unilineal descent" characterized not only the whole of North and South America, but also the original societies of Greece and Rome, was a stupendous revelation about the universal history of mankind. He knew little of Africa and Asia, but they would have supported his observation, the gentile organization—the clans—lasting in China, for example, until modern times.

5. (grammar) Of a part of speech such as an adjective, noun or verb: relating to a particular city, nation or country.
   • 1825, Samuel Oliver Jun., A General, Critical Grammar of the Inglish Language; on a System Novel, and Extensive: Exhibiting Investigations of the Analogies of Language, Written, and Spoken, Discussions on the Authorities of Grammarians, and a General Grammatical Criticism of the Learned and the Modern Languages in Comparative Illustration of the Inglish Tongue: To which is Prefixt a Discourse on the Study of Languages in Polite Education, London: Published, for the author, by Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, OCLC 681534240, page 115:

     Gentile verbs are so denominated because derived from gentile nouns, or from proper nouns, or adnouns: they relate to countries, and to places generally, or to men: the following are examples: Greecise, Latinise, Anglicise, […] Aristotelise, Sophoclise, Shakesperianise. Gentile verbs in their radical form terminate in ise, with some few exceptions in fy, ate, and in their past participle with ised, being all of the first conjugation: they are formed by annexing ise to a gentile noun or to a proper substantive or to a proper adjective.

   • 1854, William Barnes, “Etymology”, in A Philological Grammar: Grounded upon English, and Formed from a Comparison of More Than Sixty Languages. Being an Introduction to the Science of Grammar and a Help to Grammars of All Languages, Especially English, Latin and Greek, London: John Russell Smith, 36, Soho Square, page 71:

     Gentile Nouns. […] To this form belong our gentile nouns Englishman, Welshman, Scotchman, Irishman. These nouns are represented in Irish by adjectives or nouns of the form (1+ac): Alban-ac, Scotchman.

Translations

Derived terms

• gentilic
• gentilical
• gentilically
• gentilicism

Related terms

• genteel

Noun

gentile ‎(plural gentiles)

1. A non-Jewish person.
   • 1671, Theophilus Gale, “Of the Academicks, and New Platonicks of Alexandria”, in The Court of the Gentiles: or, A Discourse Touching the Original of Human Literature, both Philologie, and Philosophie, from the Scriptures, and Jewish Church: In Order to a Demonstration, of 1. The Perfection of Gods Word, and Church Light. 2. The Imperfection of Natures Light, and Mischief of Vain Philosophie. 3. The Right Use of Human Learning, and Especially Sound Philosophie, part II (Of Philosophie), Oxford: Printed by Will[iam] Hall, for Tho[mas] Gilbert, OCLC 13589118, book III, page 253:

     Yea farther, ſo glorious, and raviſhing were the firſt dawnings of Goſpel light, which brought ſuch glad tidings of Salvation to Mankind, as that not only the Jews, but alſo ſome ſober minded, inquiſitive Gentiles rejoyced in this Light for a ſeaſon […] who yet never had a through work of Converſion on their hearts: […]

   • 1810, George Ensor, “What Should Disqualify Persons from Being Electors or Representatives”, in On National Government, [...] In Two Volumes, volume II, London: Printed for J[oseph] Johnson, St. Paul's Churchyard; for the benefit of the Literary Fund, OCLC 16413653, pages 32–33:

     If a Jew cheated a Gentile one sixth in the purchase or in the sale of any commodity, the Gentile was without remedy; not so if a Gentile imposed on a Jew to the same amount. Theft likewise by a Gentile from a Jew was death, not so if the parties were changed: and the same odious injustice they manifested in their law on homicide. […] it is rather extraordinary, that Plato should say, the penalty for the death of a native and of a foreigner should be different.

2. (grammar) A noun derived from a proper noun which denotes something belonging to or coming from a particular city, nation, or country.
   • 1956, Herbert Weir Smyth; Gordon M. Messing, Greek Grammar, Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, ISBN 978-0-674-36250-5, page 233:

     Gentiles are denominative nouns denoting belonging to or coming from a particular country, nation, or city. Gentiles are formed from proper nouns by secondary suffixes.

Hypernyms

• (grammar): noun

See also

• (grammar): patronymic

Translations

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin gentīlis.

Adjective

gentile m, f ‎(masculine and feminine plural gentili)

1. kind, courteous
2. gentle
3. lovely

Related terms

• Gent.ma, Gent.mo

Noun

gentile m ‎(plural gentili)

1. Gentile

Related terms

• gentilesco
• gentilesimo
• gentilezza
• gentiliano
• gentilità
• gentilizio
• gentilmente
• gentildonna
• gentiluomo

Latin

Adjective

gentīle

1. nominative neuter singular of gentīlis
2. accusative neuter singular of gentīlis
3. vocative neuter singular of gentīlis

References

• GENTILE in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)

Swedish

Adjective

gentile

1. absolute definite natural masculine form of gentil.