GENS • DICCIONARIO INGLES.COM • Definition of Gens

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/dʒɛnz/ Listen

noun

Gens n. (pl. gentes) (Rom. Hist.)

A clan or family connection, embracing several families of the same stock, who had a common name and certain common religious rites; a subdivision of the Roman curia or tribe.

(Ethnol.) A minor subdivision of a tribe, among American aborigines. It includes those who have a common descent, and bear the same totem.

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Etymology of 'Gens'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Gens" Quotes from Famous Books

... had offended the pride of the Polish nobles by travelling about the country without leave, and resorting to the infanta; and besides, in some intercepted letters the Polish nation was designated as gens barbara et gens inepta. "I do not think that the said letter was really written by the said ambassadors, who were statesmen too politic to employ such unguarded language," very ingeniously writes ...

— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli

... village communities were found to be, or to have been the primitive form of society everywhere from India to Ireland. The inner organization of this primitive Communistic society was laid bare, in its typical form, by Morgan's crowning discovery of the true nature of the Gens and its relation to the Tribe. With the dissolution of these primaeval communities society begins to be differentiated into separate and finally antagonistic classes. I have attempted to retrace this process of dissolution in: "Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigenthums und des Staats," ...

— Manifesto of the Communist Party • Karl Marx

... Monsieur Jardine?" And when Karen said no, not yet; but that she had heard from Frau Lippheim that they were to come to London after Paris, Madame Belot suggested that the young couple might have time now to travel up to Leipsig and take the Lippheims by surprise. "Voila de braves gens et de bons artistes," ...

— Tante • Anne Douglas Sedgwick

... the damsels to reason. Fly, the prime mover of the tumult, and Mysie, her confidante, while Val and Dolly made up the mob. A little manipulation of skirts, tennis-aprons, ribbons, and caps made very nice peasant costumes. Hal was the self-important Bailli, and Jasper the drummer, the part of gens-d'armes being all that Wilfred and Fergus could ...

— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge

... of their revolutionary committees, where he was accused of various acts of incivisme. Among other things equally criminal, it was proved that one Sunday, when he went to see Le Petit Trianon, then a public-house, he exclaimed, "C'est ici que le canaille danse, et que les honnetes gens pleurent!" ...

— Murad the Unlucky and Other Tales • Maria Edgeworth

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