Polite; well-bred; decorous in manners or behavior; refined: as, genteel company.
Adapted to, suitable for, or characteristic of polite society; free from vulgarity or meanness in appearance, quality, amount, etc.; elegant; becoming; adequate: as, genteel manners; a genteel address; genteel comedy; a genteel income or allowance.
Fashionable; stylish; à la mode.
Synonyms Genteel, Polite, well-mannered, polished. Genteel refers to the outward chiefly; polite to the outward as an expression of inward refinement and kindness. Genteel has latterly tended to express a somewhat fastidious pride of refinement, family position, and the like. Genteel is often largely negative, meaning free from what is low, vulgar, or connected with the uncultivated classes; polite is positive and active, meaning that one acts in a certain way. Polite has, however, a passive meaning, that of ‘polished’: as, polite society, polite literature. See polite.