Other Definitions
gentry (dict)
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GentryThe gentry refers to a social class of landowners. In Chinese history, the gentry has a specific meaning and refers to the shen-shi or the class of landowners that had passed the bureaucratic examinations in the Ming and Qing dynasties. In European history gentry refers to well-to-do or wealthy English landowners below the level of nobility. They played an important role in the English Civil War of the seventeenth century. See also Landed gentry
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