gentles

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of gentle.

   The anglers threaded gentles onto their hooks before casting into the slow current.

   A tin of wriggling gentles sat beside the open tackle box.

   Note

   One spelling covers three different things: an angler's bait maggots, trained falcons, and, in older English, people of high birth. In fishing talk the maggots are what gentles means, kept in a tin and threaded on hooks. The well-born sense now belongs to period writing. A modern reader who meets it there should hear rank and courtesy, not bait.

2. 2
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of gentle.

   The old groom gentles every frightened animal that comes into the stable.

   Her calm presence gentles the restless mare within minutes.

   Note

   A verb of the stable and the sickroom: one gentles an animal by breaking and taming it, or gentles a person by soothing them. Both uses take a direct object. Without one, the verb means growing gentle oneself, as wind or weather does. An older meaning, to ennoble, has fallen out of use. Keep all of these apart from the bait-maggot plural.

   By evening the wind gentles and the boats come home.

   Her voice gentles as the child drifts off to sleep.

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