1 polite and correct in manner, or trying to be polite and correct in order to appear to be of a high social class: --
Much work on regulation is marked by a kind of genteel millenarianism: we always seem to be at the end of some era and the start of another.
The temptation to cultural cringe must have been very great for these youthful newcomers, faced with a frighteningly competitive genteel society in which their status required to be defended.
The genteel urbanity of the residential zone's crescents and squares juxtaposes with a strict geometric grid-plan in the separate industrial zone.
Archaeological dialogues are not always genteel affairs.
He goes on to discuss the various ways he could have handled this same material "in the 'genteel,' 'romantic,' or 'facetious' manners" (60; ch. 6).
As the figure of the highway robber received further elaboration over the course of the early modern period, his links with genteel status were restored.
Certainly, a literary distinction between genteel merchants and vulgar manufacturers had popular currency throughout the period.
Historians have often been too ready to accept this image of the reluctant genteel governess without question.
