gentlefolks

We ſay that Shores wife hath a prety foote, / A cherry lippe, a bonny eie, a paſſing pleaſing tongue: / And that the Queenes kindred are made gentlefolks.

c. 1593 (date written), [William Shakespeare], The Tragedy of King Richard the Third. […] (First Quarto), London: […] Valentine Sims [and Peter Short] for Andrew Wise, […], published 1597, →OCLC, [Act I, scene i]

What was it to her what gentlefolks ate or drank, provided they paid for it honestly? There were many honest gentlemen, whose stomachs could not abide bacon, grease, or dripping, especially on a Friday; and what was that to her, or any one in her line, so gentlefolks paid honestly for the trouble?

1822, [Walter Scott], chapter IX, in Peveril of the Peak. […], volume II, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co., →OCLC, page 223

If there be any evil in novels at all, it is when they take people from their business—when they occupy a mother's time to the neglect of her children—when they lead idle boys to neglect their lessons, and when they lead idle gentlefolks to fancy themselves employed, when they are only killing time.

1827 August 18, W. P. S., “The Common-place Book. No. XIX. Novel Writers and Novel Readers.”, in The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, volume X, number 269, London: Printed and published by J[ohn] Limbird, […], →OCLC, pages 118–119

I love to hear thy earnest voice wherever thou art hid, / Thou testy little dogmatist, thou pretty Katydid! / Thou mindest me of gentlefolks, old gentlefolks are they— / Thou say'st an undisputed thing, in such a solemn way.

1839 November 16, [Oliver Wendell Holmes], “The Question Asked”, in Supplement to the Connecticut Courant, volume V, number 46, Hartford, Conn.: John L. Boswell, publisher, →OCLC, page 361, column 1

"Ah!" she said, with a little cry of disappointment, "my man said not to make too sure, and that the ways of the gentlefolks is hard to know."

1885 January, [Margaret Oliphant Wilson Oliphant], “The Portrait. A Story of the Seen and the Unseen.”, in Blackwood’s Edinburgh Magazine, volume CXXXVII, number DCCCXXXI, Edinburgh; London: William Blackwood & Sons, […], →OCLC, page 13, column 1