Plural form referring to men and women of gentle or noble birth; people of good breeding and refinement.
Combination of 'gentle' (Latin gentilis) and 'people' (from Old French peple, Latin populus). This plural emerged in Middle English to refer collectively to the upper social classes regardless of gender.
The existence of 'gentlepeople' as a specific term shows how medieval and early modern societies needed language to mark class boundaries—even the plural forms were different for common folk versus the refined classes.
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