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say it: JEN-tuhl
gentle is an adjective and verb meaning "soft and mild; not harsh or stern or severe". It carries 10 recorded senses.
having or showing a kindly or tender nature
“the gentle touch of her hand”
“her gentle manner was comforting”
“a gentle sensitive nature”
“gentle blue eyes”
quiet and soothing
“a gentle voice”
“a gentle nocturne”
belonging to or characteristic of the nobility or aristocracy
“an aristocratic family”
“aristocratic Bostonians”
“aristocratic government”
“a blue family”
“blue blood”
“the blue-blooded aristocracy”
“of gentle blood”
“patrician landholders of the American South”
“aristocratic bearing”
“aristocratic features”
“patrician tastes”
stroke soothingly
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for gentle come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.