gently
- 1Softly and lightly, with little force or speed.
Fold in the egg whites gently so the batter stays light and airy.
She gently lifted the sleeping baby out of the car seat.
Similarsoftly, lightly, tenderly, carefully, delicately
Oppositeroughly, forcefully, violently
Note
The spelling is a shortcut: gentle plus -ly would give gentlely, and Middle English dropped the repeated syllable, writing gentilly and gentlych. Both more gently and gentlier serve as comparatives. In recipes the word warns against force: Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi tell cooks to mix tofu strips with their marinade gently, so they do not break.
- 2In a gentle, mild manner, or to a mild and gradual degree.
The lawn slopes gently down to the river.
The teacher gently corrected the boy's spelling without embarrassing him.
Similargradually, mildly, kindly, tactfully
Oppositeharshly, sharply, steeply, abruptly
Note
Landscape writing uses the degree side of this sense: farmland is gently rolling and a lawn slopes gently, each a matter of a mild gradient rather than soft handling. Applied to people, it describes a manner that spares feelings, as when a teacher gently corrects a mistake without embarrassing anyone.
- 3
- 4From a family of gentle or high-class rank, describing a person's birth.
Though gently born, she earned her keep as a governess after her father's ruin.
Gently born officers often bought their commissions rather than earning them.
Similarnobly
Oppositehumbly
Note
The adverb lives almost entirely in the phrase gently born. It speaks of rank, not of manner: the family belonged to the gentry or above, and nothing is said about how softly anyone behaved. The gentle in it is the old one meaning well-born, the same that gives the courteous, noble manner, and the phrase belongs to histories and novels of a society ordered by birth.
Less common meaning
- 5In a courteous, noble way that reflects the traditional virtues of the gentry, as befits a person of gentle birth.
Note
To behave gently once meant to behave as the gentry were expected to, with courtesy and nobility rather than mere softness. That use is obsolete, so a modern reader hears the mild manner instead, and an old text praising someone for acting gently may be praising them for acting courteously, even nobly.
Practice
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Origin
From Middle English gentilly, gentlych, gentilliche, equivalent to gentle + -ly, with *-lely simplified to -ly by haplology (the loss of a repeated syllable).