gentlemen's agreement

A Gentlemen's agreement is an informal agreement between two parties. It may be written or verbal. The essence of a gentleman's agreement is that it relies upon the honour of the parties for its fulfilment, rather than being in any way enforceable. It is, therefore, the opposite of a legal agreement, which can be enforced if necessary.

Negative Connotations

The term has come to sound distinctly old fashioned, both because of its implicit assumption that the parties will be men, and because of its assumption that they will be gentlemen. And after interwar politics in Europe the phrase has gained somewhat the connotation of an agreement easily broken.

Examples

The Gentlemen's Agreement of 1907 was an informal agreement between the United States and Japan. Japan agreed not to issue passports to citizens for travel to the United States, thus eliminating immigration. In exchange, schools in San Francisco, California agreed not to discriminate against students of Japanese descent.
The phrase occurs repeatedly in interwar political relations.

Britain signed a 'gentlemen's agreement' with Mussolini in 1937 over Naval access to the Mediterranean.
British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's discussions with Adolf Hitler culminated in the Munich Agreement of 1939 which is described in similar terms.
Hitler's agreement with the Austrian government in 1937 in which he guaranteed the country's independence.

A gentlemen's agreement that once covered the City of Philadelphia by limiting the height of all buildings within the city to be no taller than the statue of William Penn that sits on top of Philadelphia City Hall. The Curse of Billy Penn is a coincidental anecdote in relation to the agreement.
In baseball, the unwritten rules that formed the Baseball color line.
Establishment of a corporate glass ceiling.
An agreement between the US Army and US Air Force prohibiting the army from operating combat jet aircraft.

Gentlemen's Agreement

Negative Connotations

Examples

See Also