gentry

This term describes a social stratum that sits just below the titled nobility. It carries a connotation of inherited prestige, refined manners, and traditional authority, often linked to the ownership of ancestral estates and rural landholdings. Grammatically, gentry is a collective noun. While it refers to a group of people, it is treated as an uncountable noun in most contexts and does not have a standard plural form like gentries. It functions similarly to words like clergy or cattle, representing a class rather than a countable set of individuals.