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Glossary of Jane Austen Terms
âMr. Bingley was good-looking and gentlemanlike: he had a pleasant countenance, and easy, unaffected manners.â What does it mean to be âgentlemanlikeâ? What is a gentleman anyway? And how does an accomplished young woman of the early 19th century meet one? Is it good etiquette for a handsome girl to introduce herself to a gentleman possessing a pleasant countenance? Should a young woman in want of a husband consider a gentleman a likely prospect if he is a valetudinarian or an apothecary? If these terms and tropes sound familiar, you may be a Jane Austen fan. Between 1811 and 1817 the English writer published six novels of manners that detailed the social dos and donâts of the Regency era. Learn the difference between a baron and a baronet and discover other estimable vocabulary words with this delightful glossary.
⢠accomplished
- Sense and Sensibility (1811)
- Pride and Prejudice (1813)
- Mansfield Park (1814)
- Emma (1815)
- Northanger Abbey (1817)
- Persuasion (1817)
In the world of Austen, accomplished means someone with many talents and skills. In Pride and Prejudice, for example, much is made of 16-year-old Georgiana Darcyâs accomplishments, as snooty Caroline Bingley declares her âso extremely accomplished for her age! Her performance on the pianoforte is exquisite.â The comment incites a discussion of worthy accomplishments, with Carolineâs earnest brother, Charles, marveling, âIt is amazing to meâŚhow young ladies can have patience to be so very accomplished as they all are.âŚThey all paint tables, cover screens, and net purses. I scarcely know any one who cannot do all this.â The question of whether these activities count as true accomplishments, however, is ventured by the arrogant Fitzwilliam Darcy, Georgianaâs older brother, who grumbles, âI cannot boast of knowing more than half-a-dozen [ladies] in the whole range of my acquaintance that are really accomplished.â In a sly way, Darcyâs arrogance highlights an important point about Austenâs heroines: They are not especially accomplished, but their value lies in their strength in character.
⢠apothecary
In the 19th century, apothecary referred to someone who prepared and sold medicines, much like a modern-day pharmacist. Apothecaries were also called to dispense advice in rural communities, but unlike a physician, they were not university-trained. In Austenâs novels the choice of who to call to treat an illness or injury reflects the charactersâ social pretensions (or lack of them), as in Pride and Prejudice, when Charles Bingleyâs snobby sisters recommend the services of âone of the most eminent physiciansâ in town instead of the âcountry adviceâ of a rural doctor. Notably, physicians diagnosed their patients through observation and medical history, not through physical examination. That would involve the services of a surgeon, who performed hands-on work such as bone setting and bloodletting. In Austenâs time, however, there were surgeon-apothecaries who combined the skills of both roles, as in Persuasion when an apothecary is called to fix a dislocated collarbone.
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⢠barouche
As with doctors, Austen conveys much about her charactersâ status and personal tastes through their means of getting around. In Emma, for example, the titular heroine mocks the nouveau riche Augusta Hawkins, whose elder sister is âvery well married, to a gentleman in a great way, near Bristol, who kept two carriages!â In general, a carriage is a four-wheeled, horse-drawn vehicle. Another word for a carriage is coach, although this term can specify something more opulent or a hackney (a carriage for hire). A gigâas in the âodious gigsâ detested by Isabella Thorpe in Northanger Abbeyâis a lightweight, two-seat, one-horse vehicle driven by one of the passengers instead of a hired driver. On the posh side is a barouche, a roomy four-wheeled carriage pulled by two fine horses. Barouches also have collapsible hoods, making them ideal for summer âexploring parties.â Other vehicles with folding hoods include the two-wheeled chaise and post chaise, the latter of which traveled the mail routes and was typically driven by a postillion who rode the left horse instead of sitting on a driverâs box; the sporty four-wheeled, passenger-driven phaeton, an open-air carriage without doors; and the four-wheeled landau, which had two folding hoods, one at each end, that could be pulled open for a âmoon roofâ effect.
⢠countenance
One of the most common Austen terms, countenance refers to a personâs facial expression or features. A few of the adjectives used to describe her charactersâ countenances are âgloomy,â âpleasing,â âpleasant,â âpensive,â âgrateful,â âgracious,â and âsensible.â Indeed, through their countenances, Austen reveals all kinds of moods and personality types. In the first ball scene in Pride and Prejudice the rich and handsomeâbut also proudâDarcy gets a devastating dress-down in Austenâs cool prose: ânot all his large estate in Derbyshire could save him from having a most forbidding, disagreeable countenance.â Austen also refers to her characters âkeepingâ their countenanceâmeaning, keeping their calm or sense of composure.
⢠dandy
Although dandy is not used in any of Austenâs novels, the term refers to an important social figure that emerged in late 18th-century England. As epitomized by real-life gents such as Beau Brummell and, later, Oscar Wilde, a dandy is a man who pays fastidious attention to his appearance and social position. Other Regency-era terms for men include beau (which could mean a dandy or simply a gallant suitor), buck (a dashing sporty type), Corinthian (a playboy or pleasure-seeking sportsman), rake (a dissolute womanizer or libertine), and rogue (a scoundrel or otherwise wayward bad boy). Austen fans take delight in classifying her male characters. Henry Crawford is Mansfield Parkâs flirty and fickle dandy, while Northanger Abbeyâs John Thorpe is a mere wannabe. Memorable rakes and rogues, for example, include Persuasionâs opportunistic charmer William Elliot, Sense and Sensibilityâs unscrupulous fortune hunter John Willoughby, and Pride and Prejudiceâs inveterate gambler George Wickham. The latter novelâs two starring beaus are, of course, Darcy and Bingley.
⢠entail
Austenâs prose is famous for its wit and precision, but her books are also deft explorations of power and gender. Indeed, the plots of Sense and Sensibility and Pride and Prejudice center partly on the implications of entail, a law that limited the transfer of property to a specific line of heirs. Under the related law of primogeniture, only male heirs, and specifically the eldest ones in a family line, were granted property. While entailment meant that a family held on to its property, it also meant that daughters and other female heirs could become dispossessed. The sudden impoverishment of the Dashwood sisters in Sense and Sensibility is the result of an entail. After their father dies, the family estate is left to their half brother, instead of to them or to their mother. Similarly, in Pride and Prejudice, which is set partly at the Bennet familyâs entailed Longbourn estate, Mrs. Bennetâs obsessive efforts to marry off her daughters stem from her awareness of the realities of an unmarried womanâs fate.
⢠gentry
As the foremost chronicler of Regency society, Austen populated her novels with members of various social classes to illuminate their vastly different stations in life. Yet many of her characters are members of the gentry, a privileged class that was a notch down from the aristocracy. Whatâs the difference between these two groups? In Britain, aristocracy, or nobility, refers to those members of the upper class who possess a hereditary title, making them part of the peerage, which shares the responsibility of government. The five ranks of the peerage are, in descending order, duke, marquess, earl, viscount, and baron. The gentry, by contrast, are technically commoners, albeit ones who possess land and wealth. Although not peers, they may hold honorary titles such as baronet or unofficial titles such as squire, the name for the principal landowner in a village or district. Austenâs gentlemen charactersâincluding Darcy and Emmaâs George Knightleyâcome from the genteel English gentry.
⢠Gretna Green
In all of Austenâs novels, readers follow her heroines through their courtships with ideal and not-so-ideal suitors. They become engaged, they break their engagements, they experience heartbreak, they get married. Austen is not the only one who plays matchmaker. In Emma, her well-meaning heroine arranges matches in the misguided confidence that these setups will lead to a âhappily ever after.â As in the 21st century, an engagement in Austenâs time meant a promise or an agreement of marriage. Customarily, men did the proposing. If a woman accepted a manâs proposal, it was proper etiquette for him to then seek her fatherâs permission for the marriage. Unlike the common (though not universal) modern tradition, engagement rings were not exchanged upon making a proposal. Instead, lovers might exchange gifts as tokens of their affection, as when John Willoughby cuts off a lock of Marianne Dashwoodâs hair as a keepsake in Sense and Sensibility. If a couple wanted to avoid this rigmarole, they could elope, preferably to Gretna Green, a village just across Englandâs border with Scotland, where the law at the time allowed for hasty marriages. Indeed, fans of Pride and Prejudice may recall the alarm caused by the news that young Lydia Bennet has run off to Gretna Green with the scoundrel George Wickham.
⢠ha-ha
Austenâs books have many comical moments, but in Mansfield Park the term ha-ha refers to a sunken fence, not an LOL scenario. In the novel Fanny Price and others from the Bertram familyâs estate (the titular Mansfield Park) visit Sotherton, a neighborâs rambling, old-moneyed estate with a garden and a contiguous âwildernessâ containing deer. The book describes members of the party âlooking over a ha-ha into the park.â At one point Fanny even warns one of her companions against âslipping into the ha-haâânot an unlikely possibility considering that a ha-ha is essentially a ditch with a low wall on one side. A common feature in English landscape design, ha-has were devised to conceal a physical boundary between a garden and its contiguous park grounds, allowing someone to look out over the grounds with an uninterrupted view. At the same time the division was a means to keep grazing animals, such as Sothertonâs deer, out of a garden. Its name, meanwhile, comes from the surprised reaction of a viewer who suddenly comes upon the concealed feature: âAh! Ah!â
⢠natural child
In Emma, Harriet Smith, a 17-year-old boarding school student befriended by the novelâs heroine and wannabe matchmaker, Emma Woodhouse, is introduced as âthe natural daughter of somebody.â In Austenâs time, natural child was a polite euphemism for a person who was born to unmarried parents. As is noted about Harriet, very little is known about her background, other than that she was placed in a local school by âsomebodyâŚseveral years back.â The expression also comes up in Sense and Sensibility: Colonel Brandonâs ward, Eliza Williams, is believed by some (looking at you, nosy Mrs. Jennings) to be his ânatural daughter.â
⢠parson
In real life, Austen was the daughter of an Anglican rector. It comes as no surprise then to find many clergymen in her novels, especially vicars, parsons, and curates. Like titles of nobility, these roles occupied different power levels. A rector was the person in charge of a parish, typically a wealthier one, and he received a full income from tithes and other economic sources within the parish. Below him was the vicar, who was usually put in charge of a less affluent parish and received a partial income. Parson was a more all-purpose name for the current rector or vicar of a parish. At the lowest level was the curate, an assistant to the vicar or rector who received a mere stipend. Two examples of Austenâs clergy characters are Emmaâs Mr. Elton (a vicar) and Sense and Sensibilityâs Edward Ferrars (a rectorâŚeventually). Ranking above all these men of God were the powerful bishops and archbishops, but in the world of Austen, these high and mighty figures are barely mentioned.
⢠Regency
In 1811 Britainâs king George III was deemed unfit to reign because of his mental illness. His son George IV, the prince of Wales, became regent, ushering in the Regency era, which lasted until the prince was crowned king in 1820. Austenâs novels detailed this era to a T, with her intricate descriptions of English country life, including its estates, balls, and social mores. Style-wise, the eraâs gorgeous decorative arts drew from the structural and ornamental elements of Greek and Roman antiquity. In the modern era, the Regency style has been painstakingly recreated (more or less) for the many film and TV adaptations of Austenâs books and such fare as the popular romance drama series Bridgerton (2020â ).
⢠retrenchment
Wealth and the lack of it are primary concerns of Austenâs characters. Money woes play a significant role in Persuasion, a story of second-chance love that involves a plot in which the vain baronet Sir Walter Elliot throws his family and estate into debt because of his extravagance. The situation requires a scheme of retrenchmentâessentially, âcutting backâ or âtightening oneâs beltââdrawn up by the Elliotsâ family friend Lady Russell. Too proud to reduce himself to cost-cutting, Sir Walter decides to rent out his estate, Kellynch Hall, and move the family to smaller quarters in Bath.
⢠sensibility
When modern readers first encounter the title of Austenâs debut novel, Sense and Sensibility, they may struggle to understand the nuance between these two similar-sounding terms. Of course, Austen resolves any confusion through her two main characters: sisters Elinor and Marianne Dashwood, one of whom represents sense (Elinor) and the other sensibility (Marianne). Sense means the same thing it does in the modern age: prudence and discretion, much like the expression âgood common sense.â Sensibility, on the other hand, means openness, enthusiasm, and emotionality. Without judging the temperaments of her characters, Austen shows how the sistersâ different personalities color their approaches to life and love.
⢠the Ton
Except for a âblink and miss itâ reference in Mansfield Park, the term the Ton is not used in Austenâs works. Regardless, Austen buffs and Bridgerton fans alike know this crowd well. Derived from the French bon ton (âgood toneâ or âgood styleâ), the Ton refers to high society, a privileged group comprising the aristocracy and landed gentry. Basically, the whoâs who of English society. The Tonâs world revolved around following rigid codes of etiquette and fashion. Austenâs novels are filled with insight into the complicated rules of this set. Though her heroines can make propriety look easy, her prose belies the tricky social skills needed to impress the elite, as in her description of Northanger Abbeyâs Miss Tilney: âHer manners showed good sense and good breeding; they were neither shy nor affectedly open; and she seemed capable of being young, attractive, and at a ball without wanting to fix the attention of every man near her, and without exaggerated feelings of ecstatic delight or inconceivable vexation on every little trifling occurrence.â (Whew.)
⢠valetudinarian
Valetudinarian appears only once in an Austen novel, in Emma. Mr. Woodhouse, the heroineâs widower father, is described: âfor having been a valetudinarian all his life, without activity of mind or body, he was a much older man in ways than in years.â A valetudinarian can mean someone who is excessively preoccupied with illness (i.e., a hypochondriac) or someone with a genuinely frail constitution. The jury is out on which of these Emmaâs father is. Notably, more than once he calls himself an invalid, a common term in Austenâs works to describe someone who is sickly or recovering from an illness. And he often consults the apothecary Mr. Perry, âwhose frequent visits were one of the comforts of Mr. Woodhouseâs life.â
⢠whist
Along with such pastimes and amusements as exploring parties, balls, and novel reading, many of Austenâs characters enjoy playing card games. Those mentioned include whist, cribbage, loo, and casino. In Mansfield Park, a betting card game called speculation predicts much about the looming competition between risk-taking Mary Crawford and mild-mannered Fanny Price for Edmund Bertramâs heart. In Pride and Prejudice, Lizzy Bennet drolly notes that it takes four evenings for her sister Jane and suitor Charles Bingley âto ascertain that they both like Vingt-un better than Commerce.â Modern-day card sharks and gamblers likely know Vingt-un as blackjack, while commerce is an early form of poker. Other entertainments that show up in Austenâs world are charades (not the pantomime game but a guessing game using riddles delivered in verse) and backgammon (a board game).