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From The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.44 [gcide]:
Genteel \Gen*teel"\, adjective [F. gentil noble, pretty, graceful. See {Gentle}.]
1. Possessing or exhibiting the qualities popularly regarded as belonging to high birth and breeding; free from vulgarity, or lowness of taste or behavior; adapted to a refined or cultivated taste; polite; well-bred; as, genteel company, manners, address.
2. Graceful in mien or form; elegant in appearance, dress, or manner; as, the lady has a genteel person. Law.
3. Suited to the position of lady or a gentleman; as, to live in a genteel allowance.
Syn: Polite; well-bred; refined; polished.
From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:
genteel
adjective: marked by refinement in taste and manners; "cultivated speech"; "cultured Bostonians"; "cultured tastes"; "a genteel old lady"; "polite society" [syn: {civilized}, {civilised}, {cultivated}, {cultured}, {polite}]
From Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0 [moby-thes]:
132 Moby Thesaurus words for "genteel": Victorian, affected, appropriate, aristocratic, artificial, becoming, blue-blooded, braw, cavalier, chic, chivalrous, civil, classy, clothes-conscious, confined, cosmopolitan, county, courteous, courtly, cultivated, cultured, dapper, dashing, debonair, decent, decorous, distingue, dressed to advantage, dressed to kill, ducal, elegant, exalted, exquisite, fashionable, felicitous, fitting, formal, gentle, gentlemanlike, gentlemanly, graceful, gracious, happy, high, high-class, highbred, insular, intolerant, jaunty, kinglike, kingly, knightly, la-di-da, ladylike, mannered, mannerly, meet, mincing, narrow, natty, neat, nifty, nobby, noble, of gentle blood, of rank, overdone, parochial, patrician, polished, polite, pompous, posh, pretentious, prig, priggish, princelike, princely, prissy, proper, provincial, prudish, puritanical, putting on airs, queenlike, queenly, quite the lady, recherche, refined, respectable, right, ritzy, royal, seemly, sharp, silk-stocking, sleek, smart, smug, snazzy, soigne, soignee, sophisticated, spiffy, spruce, stilted, straitlaced, stuffy, style-conscious, stylish, suave, suitable, swank, swanky, swell, thoroughbred, titled, tony, too-too, tricksy, trig, trim, uncharitable, unnatural, upper crust, urbane, well-behaved, well-bred, well-brought-up, well-dressed, well-groomed, well-mannered
From THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY ((C)1911 Released April 15 1993) [devils]:
GENTEEL, adjective Refined, after the fashion of a gent.
Observe with care, my son, the distinction I reveal: A gentleman is gentle and a gent genteel. Heed not the definitions your "Unabridged" presents, For dictionary makers are generally gents. G.J.
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