Gentry is a term meaning one thing in the UK: landed gentry. In Europe and the United States, gentry has a wide meaning, ranging from those of noble background to those of good family (i.e. "gentle" birth). Before the Industrial Revolution, the gentry were located between the yeomanry and the Peerage, and were traditionally considered lesser aristocracy if they did not bear arms, or as the lesser nobility if the family was armigerous. Unlike yeomen, the gentry did not work the land themselves; instead, they hired tenant farmers.

In English history, landed gentry were the smaller landowners, and generally had no titles apart from Knighthoods and Baronetcies. Baronets are something of an exception, since they had hereditary titles but, not being members of the Peerage, were also considered of the gentry or lesser nobility. The landed gentry played an important role in the English Civil War of the seventeenth century. The term is still occasionally employed, for example, by the publishers of Burke's Landed Gentry, though they explain that their continued use of that term is elastic and stems, in part, from the adoption of that short title for a series first entitled Burke's Commoners (as opposed to Burke's Peerage and Baronetage). The term county family is commonly deemed to be co-terminous with the terms gentry and landed gentry. See Walford's County Families and gentleman.

In some European countries such as Poland, a tenth of the population corresponded to the gentry; in Portugal the local gentry, the fidalgos, were also numerous.

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derekcody: New Hope beats Gentry 14-0 #wcbiendzone
GoreSports (GoreSports) Sat, 07 Nov 2009 03:14:09 -0000
derekcody: New Hope beats Gentry 14-0 #wcbiendzone
New Hope beats Gentry 14-0 #wcbiendzone
derekcody (derekcody) Sat, 07 Nov 2009 03:12:23 -0000
New Hope beats Gentry 14-0 #wcbiendzone
@phoenixsungirl @azdawg115 good win 4 the suns! Nice bday gift for Alvin gentry !
PHX_CHAW (Chawty) Sat, 07 Nov 2009 03:06:43 -0000
@phoenixsungirl @azdawg115 good win 4 the suns! Nice bday gift for Alvin gentry !
@peterschloss Man, you landed gentry have it so easy out there in your rural idyll.
imagethief (Will Moss) Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:53:06 -0000
@peterschloss Man, you landed gentry have it so easy out there in your rural idyll.
True friendship comes when silence between two people is comfortable. ~Dave Tyson Gentry tweet...tweet...tweet
bbjlopez1 (Judith Lopez) Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:47:00 -0000
True friendship comes when silence between two people is comfortable. ~Dave Tyson Gentry tweet...tweet...tweet
@MarizuChavez #Honduras The US has always supported the 'landed gentry' and oligarchic classes in Latin America.
pavlovelez (Pavlo Velez) Sat, 07 Nov 2009 02:37:16 -0000
@MarizuChavez #Honduras The US has always supported the 'landed gentry' and oligarchic classes in Latin America.

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