a.
† 1. Endowed with good morals, displaying virtuous conduct and behavior. Obs.
1393. Langl., P. Pl., C. XI. 260. A mayde wel ymanered, of good men yspronge.
c. 1400. Destr. Troy, 6320. Patroclus, þe proud kyng, was … Wel manert & meke.
c. 1450. trans. De Imitatione, I. xxv. 37. Hou swete it is … to se fervent & deuoute breþren & wel manerd [bene morigeratos] & under discipline.
a. 1475. Ashby, Dicta Philos., 113. Wele manered people bene of goode lif.
1526. Pilgr. Perf. (W. de W., 1531), 45. Whiche were in theyr conuersacyon ryght honest & well manerd.
1570. T. Norton, trans. Nowell’s Catech., 78. In Chirches well ordered and well mannered [In ecclesiis bene institutis atque moratis] there was [etc.].
1596. Dalrymple, trans. Leslie’s Hist. Scot., I. 235. A man quha feiret God, and Was Weil maneret, and of singular conditiounis [singulari morum probitate praedito].
1597. J. King, On Jonas (1618), 382. To nurse you vp in a ciuil & well-mannered country.
2. Displaying good manners, courteous.
1547. Boorde, Introd. Knowl., iii. (1870), 132. The people of the Englyshe pale be metely wel manerd,… but naturally they be testy.
1574. Hellowes, Gueuara’s Fam. Ep. (1577), 74. Haue a care to be well manered: for with good manners, more than with any other thing we withdrawe our enimies, and do susteine our friends.
1682. Dryden, Medall, Ep. to Whigs. By which well-mannerd and charitable Expressions, I was certain of his Sect, before I knew his name. Ibid. (1693), Juv., Ded. (1697), p. lxv. A Well-manner’d Court-Slave.
1714. Mrs. Manley, Adv. Rivella (ed. 2), 38. I was too well Manner’d to take the Black, and leave none to attend your Ladyship.
1741. Richardson, Pamela, II. 227. Where’s your well-manner’d Deceiver gone, Child? says she.
1847. Mrs. Gore, Castles in Air, vi. Though good-looking, and even well-mannered, because courteous and unaffected, they had no pretension to be ladies.
1847. Lytton, Lucretia, I. i. The boy … was so lively, yet so well mannered.
absol. 1856. Lever, Martins of Cro’ Martin, xxiii. 244. I have given up association with the well-bred and the well-mannered, to rub shoulders with the coarse-minded, the rough-hearted, and the vulgar.
