The article analyses the functioning of the qualitative adjective «gent/gente» («highborn», «noble», «brave», «beautiful») in the old French epic poem of the late XIII - early XIII century «The Conquest of Orange». The main feature of the semantics of this adjective is that in the poem it may have several meanings at the same time. Noble character (highborn), positive assessment of the appearance (beautiful, elegant) or the «correct» behavior, right manners, their relevance in the royal court (well-behaved) are highlighted depending on the context, on whether it comes before or after the noun (preposition or postposition) and on its syntactical function. Still the unstressed meanings are also present in the background: they are understood in the context, referring to the whole concept. The functioning of such lexical items in the text is similar to how a symbol works. Just as a symbol actualizes the extensive meanings stored in the mind of a medieval person in a compressed form, a syncretic word in a specific context refers to the entire complex of meanings that builds a concept which is important for the medieval mindset.