(treated as sing. or pl) the upper class, or those regarded as constituting it in local society

Mr Brooke … was in this case brave enough to defy the world – that is to say, Mrs Cadwallader the Rector's wife, and the small group of gentry with whom he visited — George Eliot

derog or humorous (treated as pl) people of a specified kind or class

You can't trust these academic gentry