Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. a gentleman, a man, a fellow.

1635		H. Glapthorne Hollander V i: No matter Lovring thou art a Gent.
1657		T. Jordan Walks of Islington and Hogsdon III i: You are very welcome Gent.
1660		S. Marmion Soddered Citizen IV v: Sir, I am a gent, and a scoller.
1789		G. Parker Life’s Painter 133: So nobles and gents, lug your counterfeits out / I’ll take brums or cut ones, and thank you to boot.
1794		Sporting Mag. Aug. IV 281/1: The first set-to determined odds among the gents of a guinea to a crown.
1803		‘A Pembrochian’ Gradus ad Cantabrigiam Dedication: Young Gents, Your academical Brother, A Pembrochian.
1821		Egan Life in London in Bk of Sports (1832) 7: What he axed for, he tipped for, like a Gent.
1822		‘A. Burton’ My Cousin in the Army 110: Forthwith she threw its whole contents Down at the love essaying Gents.
1836–7		Dickens Pickwick Papers (1999) 19: Mr. blotton would only say then, that he replied the hon. gent’s false and scurrilous accusation, with profound contempt [...] The hon. gent was a humbug.
1842		‘Sarah’s A Blowen’ in Nobby Songster 18: Young Sarah’s a blowen: / Vot does the thing neat; / She’s kept by a Gent, / Who hundreds has spent, / On Sarah the blowen.
1853		‘Cuthbert Bede’ Adventures of Mr Verdant Green (1982) I 22: Jehu, saluting with his elbow and whip finger, called out [...] ‘Are you the two houtside gents for Hoxfut?’.
1867		M. Lemon Golden Fetters II 231: ‘Commercial gents’ were and are [...] a very exclusive body.
1877		Five Years’ Penal Servitude 238: The man from the Mint strolled in [...] with another ‘gent’.
1887		G. Devol Forty Years a Gambler 185: He [...] said to the old gent, who was holding the stakes, ‘Give him the money’.
1891		G.R. Sims ‘Pickpocket Poems’ Dagonet Ditties 92: A gent as I thought wasn’t sober / The corner I stood at passed by.
1902		A. Bennett Grand Babylon Hotel 94: There was a gent present at my ball that I didn’t ask.
1910		H. Hapgood Types from City Streets 37: A gent, what you call a gentleman, is a bloke wat ain’t a junk.
c.1921		T. Norman Penny Showman 39: The old gent then went over to a middle-aged lady seated at a table.
1933		N. West Miss Lonelyhearts in Coll. Works (1975) 260: There’s a gent here named Doyle who wants to meet you.
1933		C. Drew ‘Sledgehammer Joe’ in Bulletin (Sydney) 19 July 48/3: ‘It ain’t as if I was asking you to do something that would affect your reputation as a boxer or a gent’.
1939		Rover 18 Feb. 3: ‘Now, gents,’ cried the auctioneer.
1947		W.D. Overholser Buckaroo’s Code (1948) 11: That’s the gent.
1958		(con. 1940s) B. Behan Borstal Boy 75: The greasy fat bastard trying to show himself a Limey gent.
1962		F. Norman Guntz 178: Being a perfect gent at all times I did not bother.
1970		‘Red’ Rudensky Gonif 23: The old gent had shriveled up like a prune.
1989		Beano Comic Library No. 182 23: Gulp! Sorry, Gents!
1997		D. Farson Never a Normal Man 99: He treated me as if I were doing him the favour – a real gent.
2001		K. Sampson Outlaws (ms.) 61: He’s probably a real gent.

2. a gentleman, but only when ‘applied derisively to men of the vulgar and pretentious class who are supposed to use the word, and as used in tradesmen’s notices’ (OED); thus gentism, the style of such an individual, gentish adj.

1841		Sydney Herald 26 Oct. 2/4: ‘To blow up,’ or ‘to give a person a blowing up,’ [...] is chiefly used by such people as call porter, heavy wet, the eyes, daylights, the ears, listeners, halfpence, browns, shillings, bobs, money, tin or blunt, gentlemen, gents,.
1844		Kentish Mercury 6 July 5/2: There are no ‘sporting characters’ evidently; no ‘gents,’ with cut-a-way Newmarket coats, and slang conversation.
1848		‘Ned Buntline’ Mysteries and Miseries of N.Y. IV 30: Are ye all loaded and primed, gents?
1850		Atlas (London) 6 Apr. 220/2: The ‘fast’ school [i.e. of drama] — of slang and gentism.
1851		H. Mayhew Comic Almanack 29: Beer from the homely pewter, / To ‘gents’ I leave with scorn.
1858		J.E. Ritchie Night Side of London (2nd edn) 168: Brown with his all-round collar, Jones with his Noah’s Ark coat, Robinson with the straight tile, which young England deems the cheese, delight us no more with their snobby appearance and gentish airs.
1873		in Sl. Dict. 175: Gent a contraction of ‘gentleman,’ ? in more senses than one. A dressy, showy, foppish man, with a little mind, who vulgarizes the prevailing fashion.
1882		Bristol Magpie 9 Nov. 9/2: One of those boozy ‘gents’ who so often destroy the comfort of an audience, was very summarily and properly dealt with here last Thursday.
1883		Nat. Police Gaz. (NY) 8 Dec. 3/1: The pot-bellied ‘gent’ who rejoices in the euphonistic and romantic name of Frederic de Belleville, is in more hot water [...] Incidentally, the pot-bellied one’s real name is Bonba, and [...] he is a Swiss, the son of an inn-keeper.
1897		E.W. Townsend Chimmie Fadden 55: ‘Gents don’t tell ladies dey is dago igits like you told me,’ she says.
1902		Ade Girl Proposition 94: He was the Police Gazette’s Idea of a Gent.
1925		M. Arlen May Fair (1947) 202: ‘You’re a gent,’ [...] ‘And gents,’ said the policemen, ‘know nothing. And what they do know is mouldy.’.
1930		E. Waugh Vile Bodies 10: Behind them a game of cards was in progress among the commercial gents.
1948		C. Day Lewis Otterbury Incident 109: Might as well try and look like a gent when you go around with me.
1956		Galton & Simpson ‘Diary’ Hancock’s Half-Hour [radio script] The Personal Diary of Anthony Hancock Gent, 1956.

3. attrib. use of sense 2.

1999

Guardian G2 16 July 3: Dai Llewellyn was employed as social secretary to ‘retain the gent feel’.

4. used of an inanimate object.

1919

C.H. Thorp Handful of Ausseys 269: That shell [...] They’re nine-inch gents, them.