| / English Dictionary |
GALLANT
| Pronunciation (US): |  | (GB): | |
I. (noun)
Sense 1
Meaning:
A man who is much concerned with his dress and appearance
Synonyms:
beau; clotheshorse; dandy; dude; fashion plate; fop; gallant; sheik; swell
Classified under:
Hypernyms ("gallant" is a kind of...):
adult male; man (an adult person who is male (as opposed to a woman))
Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "gallant"):
cockscomb; coxcomb (a conceited dandy who is overly impressed by his own accomplishments)
macaroni (a British dandy in the 18th century who affected Continental mannerisms)
Instance hyponyms:
Beau Brummell; Brummell; George Bryan Brummell (English dandy who was a fashion leader during the Regency (1778-1840))
Sense 2
Meaning:
A man who attends or escorts a woman
Synonyms:
gallant; squire
Classified under:
Nouns denoting people
Hypernyms ("gallant" is a kind of...):
attendant; attender; tender (someone who waits on or tends to or attends to the needs of another)
Derivation:
gallant (being attentive to women like an ideal knight)
II. (adjective)
Sense 1
Meaning:
Unflinching in battle or action
Example:
put up a gallant resistance to the attackers
Classified under:
Similar:
brave; courageous (possessing or displaying courage; able to face and deal with danger or fear without flinching)
Sense 2
Meaning:
Being attentive to women like an ideal knight
Synonyms:
chivalrous; gallant; knightly
Classified under:
Similar:
courteous (characterized by courtesy and gracious good manners)
Derivation:
gallant (a man who attends or escorts a woman)
Sense 3
Meaning:
Having or displaying great dignity or nobility
Example:
proud alpine peaks
Synonyms:
gallant; lofty; majestic; proud
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
impressive (making a strong or vivid impression)
Sense 4
Meaning:
Lively and spirited
Example:
a dashing hero
Synonyms:
dashing; gallant
Classified under:
Adjectives
Similar:
spirited (displaying animation, vigor, or liveliness)
Context examples:
Four-and-twenty hours later, and I should only have been a gallant Captain Wentworth, in a small paragraph at one corner of the newspapers; and being lost in only a sloop, nobody would have thought about me.
(Persuasion, by Jane Austen)
He paused in hopes of an answer; but his companion was not disposed to make any; and Elizabeth at that instant moving towards them, he was struck with the action of doing a very gallant thing, and called out to her: My dear Miss Eliza, why are you not dancing?
(Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen)
The approach of September brought tidings of Mr. Bertram, first in a letter to the gamekeeper and then in a letter to Edmund; and by the end of August he arrived himself, to be gay, agreeable, and gallant again as occasion served, or Miss Crawford demanded; to tell of races and Weymouth, and parties and friends, to which she might have listened six weeks before with some interest, and altogether to give her the fullest conviction, by the power of actual comparison, of her preferring his younger brother.
(Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen)
There was a bustle outside, and Mrs. Hudson opened the door to usher in two robust and official-looking individuals, one of whom was well known to us as Inspector Gregson of Scotland Yard, an energetic, gallant, and, within his limitations, a capable officer.
(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
And although her husband received her with all possible kindness, and without the least reproach, she soon after contrived to steal down again, with all her jewels, to the same gallant, and has not been heard of since.
(Gulliver's Travels into several remote nations of the world, by Jonathan Swift)
It was commanded up to Monday night by James Barclay, a gallant veteran, who started as a full private, was raised to commissioned rank for his bravery at the time of the Mutiny, and so lived to command the regiment in which he had once carried a musket.
(The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
This boy will some day know what a brave and gallant woman his mother is.
(Dracula, by Bram Stoker)
Lynn; and Mary Ingram listened languidly to the gallant speeches of the other.
(Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë)
I was debating whether I should pretend that I was not well, and fly—I don't know where—upon my gallant grey, when Dora and Miss Mills met me.
(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)
She brought some piteous tale, no doubt, such as a gallant young man could hardly refuse to listen to.
(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)
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