1785. Burns, Epistle to J. Lapraite, st. 11. Do ye envy the city gent, Behint a kist to lie and sklent?
1843. Thackeray, Irish Sketch Book, ch. viii. The crowd of swaggering gents (I don’t know the corresponding phrase in the Anglo-Irish vocabulary to express a shabby dandy), awaiting the Cork mail.
1844. Disraeli, Coningsby, bk. IV., ch. ii. ‘Ah, not in business! Hem! professional?’ ‘No,’ said Coningsby, ‘I am nothing.’—‘Ah! an independent gent; hem! and a very pleasant thing too.’
1846. Sunday Paper, 24 May. Mr. Rawlinson (Magistrate at Marylebone Police Court). What do you mean by gent? There is no such word in our language. I hold a man who is called a gent to be the greatest blackguard there is.
1848. Punch, vol. XIV., p. 226. His aversion for a gent is softened by pity.
1869. Blue Budget. The gent indicates a being who apes the gentility without the faintest shadow of a claim to it.
2. (Old Cant).—Money. [From Fr., argent.] For synonyms, see Actual and Gilt.
1864. Revue des Deux Mondes, 15 Sept., p. 470. Les voleurs anglais disent gent pour ‘argent.’
3. (colloquial).—A sweetheart, a mistress: e.g., My gent = my particular friend.
Adj. (old literary).—Elegant; comely; genteel.