Gentile or Goy (from Latin gentilis, by the French gentil, feminine: gentille, meaning of or belonging to a clan or tribe) is an ethnonym that commonly means non–Jew. Other groups that claim Israelite heritage sometimes use the term to describe outsiders.entile derives from Latin gentilis, which itself derives from the Latin gens (from which, together with forms of the cognate Greek word genos, also derive gene, general, genus, genesis, gentry, and gentleman) meaning clan or tribe. Gens derives from the Proto-Indo-European *ǵenh₁tis. ǵénh₁tis