gentleman's gentleman
English
Noun
gentleman's gentleman (plural gentleman's gentlemen or gentlemen's gentlemen)
- (chiefly Britain) A valet or a man's personal manservant.
- 1823, Sir Walter Scott, chapter 13, in St. Ronan's Well, volume II:
- Touchwood was by no means critically nice in his society, but was observed to converse as readily with a gentleman's gentleman, as with the gentleman to whom he belonged.
- 1918, Jeffery Farnol, chapter 15, in Our Admirable Betty:
- [H]e put it away and, ringing the bell, demanded his valet. . . . In due time came a discreet knock and thereafter a discreet person entered, tall, quick-eyed, low-voiced, soft-stepping, he was a very model of a fashionable gentleman's gentleman.
- 2007 Nov. 15, Jasper Gerard, "Butlers: A Jeeves of my very own," Telegraph (UK) (retrieved 16 Jan 2016):
- [H]e estimates that only 50 aristocrats still employ domestic staff (less than the number of London-based Russian plutocrats employing a gentleman's gentleman).
-
Further reading
- gentleman's gentleman at OneLook Dictionary Search