gentry mort

gentry mort (plural gentry morts)

1. (obsolete, Britain, thieves' cant) A gentlewoman; a lady.
   • 1707, Shirley, John, “The Maunder's Praise of his Strowling Mort”, in The Triumph of Wit:

     No gentry mort hath prats like thine, / No cove e'er wap'd with such a one.

   • 2006, Watson, Sally, The Outrageous Oriel:

     Chastity sighed in profound relief. To know a gentry mort like this was the most wondrous event of her life, and she craved her approval more than she did God's.

   • 2015, Jeffries, Sabrina, The Art of Sinning:

     You said I wasn't to use cant around a gentry mort, and here she's using it more than me.

• gentry cove

• [Francis Grose] (1788), “Gentry mort”, in A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, 2nd corrected and enlarged edition, London: Printed for S. Hooper, […], OCLC 3138643.
• “gentry mort” in Albert Barrère and Charles G[odfrey] Leland, compilers and editors, A Dictionary of Slang, Jargon & Cant, volume I (A–K), Edinburgh: The Ballantyne Press, 1889–1890, page 400.
• Farmer, John Stephen (1893) Slang and Its Analogues‎, volume 3, page 132