genteel

• There is nothing of the shabby-genteel, the would-be-but-couldn't-be fine gentleman; he is the great American Demos, honest, shrewd, homely, wise, humorous, cheerful, brave, blundering occasionally, but through blunders struggling onwards towards what he believes the right." —  Abraham Lincoln
• Then we've heavy artillery-- recruited from the big manufacturing towns and ship-building yards--and ferocious hard-ridin' Yeomanry (they can ride--now), genteel, semi- genteel, and Hooligan corps, and so on and so forth till you come to the Home Defence Establishment--the young chaps knocked out under medical certificate at the Second Camp, but good enough to sit behind hedges or clean up camp, and the old was-birds who've served their time but don't care to drop out of the fun of the yearly camps and the halls. —  Traffics and Discoveries
• She must have some of her own by this time The character of the street had changed to what might be called shabby-genteel, and they stopped before a three-story brick house--one of a row--that showed signs of scrupulous care. —  The Inside of the Cup — Complete
• One couldn't call him genteel, which is worse, I think. —  December Love
• Your carriage genteel, and your motions graceful. —  Letters to His Son on the Art of Becoming a Man of the World and a Gentleman, 1746-47

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the Same Context