gallant

adj

Etymology: 17th-century borrowing from French galant. See above.

1. Polite and attentive to ladies; courteous to women; chivalrous.

   “I admire all that quaint, old-fashioned politeness; it is much more to my taste than modern ease; modern ease often disgusts me. But this good old Mr. Woodhouse, I wish you had heard his gallant speeches to me at dinner. Oh! I assure you I began to think my caro sposo would be absolutely jealous.”

name

1. A surname.
2. A census-designated place in Etowah County and St. Clair County, Alabama, United States, named after a pioneer settler.

noun

Etymology: 17th-century borrowing from French galant. See above.

1. A fashionable young man who is polite and attentive to women.

   “PROSPERO: […] this gallant which thou see'st / Was in the wrack; and but he's something stain'd / with grief,—that beauty's canker,—thou mightst call him / A goodly person […]”

2. One who woos, a lover, a suitor, a seducer.

   “[…] they were discovered in a very improper manner by the husband of the gypsy, who, from jealousy it seems, had kept a watchful eye over his wife, and had dogged her to the place, where he found her in the arms of her gallant.”

   “The ignominy of that whisper'd tale / About a midnight gallant, seen to climb / A window to her chamber neighbour'd near, / I will from her turn off, and put the load / On the right shoulders; on that wretch's head, […]”

3. A topgallant.

verb

Etymology: 17th-century borrowing from French galant. See above.

1. To attend or wait on (a lady).

   “to gallant ladies to the play”

   “During this period, we were the lions of the neighbourhood; and, no doubt, strangers from the distant villages were taken to see the "Karhowrees" (white men), in the same way that countrymen, in a city, are gallanted to the Zoological Gardens.”

2. To handle with grace or in a modish manner.

   “to gallant a fan”

3. To conduct, escort, convey.

   “... and the canoes of Vivenza, locking their yard-arms into those of the vanquished, very courteously gallanted them into their coral harbors.”

4. To behave in a gallant fashion; to act the gallant.

   “How different is the young, fun-loving, comical, quizzing, gallanting Captain Arthur Wellesley, when residing in his shooting lodge between Summerhill and Dangan, from the stern, cautious, careworn Fabius of the Peninsular war[.]”