Definition of "gentilesse" [gen•ti•lesse]

• Archaic Refinement and courtesy resulting from good breeding. (noun)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "Emerson was very fond of the passage on "gentilesse" in Chaucer's _Wife of Bath's"
• "Axe congeed Modanis, then went to dark dragon, as gentilesse when face to Axe."
• "His wife Françoise was the most beautiful and accomplished woman of her time, the "perle de noblesse, de gentilesse, et de savoir;" and moreover possessed of the rich inheritance of her uncle Bertrand de Dinan, of the"