first gentleman

noun

A man that is or was a spouse of the political chief executive, when speaking non-specifically.

Meanings

first gentleman1

nounfirst gentleman (plural first gentlemen)

plural first gentlemen

  1. genericA man that is or was a spouse of the political chief executive, when speaking non-specifically.

First Gentleman2

nounFirst Gentleman (plural First Gentlemen)

plural First Gentlemen

  1. The husband (or man of similar rank) of a chief executive of a nation; especially the husband of the President of a country.

    Fourteen years ago, before the President and First Gentleman were married, they checked into Keene Memorial Hospital and there had a son, this boy, Cooper Jewett.

    2005, Gary D. Schmidt, First Boy, →ISBN
    4 more examples

    President Gloria M. Arroyo and First Gentleman Mike Arroyo (left) during a “pamanikan” with the Montealegre family (couple at right) to ask for the hand of their daughter engaged to be married to the President’s son Mikey M. Arroyo (center). […] The day of his arrival, Malacañang announced that henceforth the First Gentleman was going to have his own spokesman.

    2002, Isabelo T. Crisostomo, The Power and the Glory: Gloria Macapagal Arroyo and Her Presidency, →ISBN

    President Macapagal-Arroyo had been amply forewarned. First Gentleman Miguel Arroyo said she “knew that her job as Vice President was to be prepared to take over[…]”

    2004, The Macapagal-Arroyo Presidency and Administration: Record and Legacy, 2001-2004 : President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Her Administration, University of the Philippines Press, →ISBN, page 52

    Meredith Nicholson becomes the 44th President of the United States and Milton Stafford becomes the country's "First Gentleman". […] After all what were husbands—”First Gentlemen”—good for if they didn’t go above and beyond for the ones they loved.

    2004 November, Kristina Bachman, The First Gentleman, iUniverse, →ISBN

    Seven years later, in 2006, Kubrador was released in the wake of another sequence of state crises: the political scandals of 2005 that implicated the First Gentleman of the Philippines, Mike Arroyo, in payoffs from the illegal gambling trade, jueteng. […] The opening intertitles point to jueteng payolas as being linked to both deposed leader Joseph “Erap” Estrada and family members of former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, whose husband, First Gentleman Mike Arroyo, was also accused of involvement in jueteng.

    2011 May 9, Jyostna Kapur, Keith B. Wagner, Neoliberalism and Global Cinema: Capital, Culture, and Marxist Critique, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN
  2. USThe husband of a governor or mayor.

    […] the museum acquired another first: the tuxedo that North Carolina's first First Gentleman wore to the inaugural ball.

    2009, Carolina Comments, volume 57, North Carolina State Department of Archives and History
    2 more examples

    Forthcoming episodes deal with husband learning to cook, husband (henceforth to be known as First Gentleman) being seated with the wives at the Governors’ conference, and husband deploring the décor of the Governor’s mansion. / Turn off the laugh track, folks, this is no sitcom. It’s the very happy real-life story of Nebraska’s first female Governor.

    1988 December 12, “While Nebraska Governor Kay Orr Makes Policy, Husband Bill, her ‘First Gentleman’ Bakes Meat Loaf”, in People, quoted in Governing Codes: Gender, Metaphor, and Political Identity, →ISBN

    […] the governor’s residence and by the speeding ticket she received while driving the governor’s caro Governor Kay Orr (1987–91) and her husband, Bill, set a new precedent when they became the first woman governor and “First Gentleman”[…]

    2008, Nebraska History, volume 89

Synonyms & antonyms

Also see

Origin

First Gentleman · noun

By analogy with First Lady.

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

first gentleman. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/first%20gentleman

MLA

“first gentleman.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/first%20gentleman. Accessed November 3, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “first gentleman,” accessed November 3, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/first%20gentleman.

Source: first gentleman on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.