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• working class
  working class

  noun

  those persons working for wages, especially in manual labor.
• working-class
  working-class

  adjective

  of, relating to, or characteristic of the working class, the class of wage earners or manual laborers.

working class

¹ American  

noun

1. those persons working for wages, especially in manual labor.

2. the social or economic class composed of these workers.

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working-class ² American  

[wur-king-klas] / ˈwɜr kɪŋˌklæs /

adjective

1. of, relating to, or characteristic of the working class, the class of wage earners or manual laborers.

   He came from a working-class neighborhood in Nova Scotia, where his mother took in laundry and his father had a job in the coal mine.

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working class British  

noun

1. Also called: proletariat.  the social stratum, usually of low status, that consists of those who earn wages, esp as manual workers Compare lower class middle class upper class

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adjective

1. of, relating to, or characteristic of the working class

working class Cultural  

1. In the United States, the population of blue-collar workers, particularly skilled and semiskilled laborers, who differ in values, but not necessarily in income, from the middle class. In Marxism, this term refers to propertyless factory workers.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• working-class
  adjective

Etymology

Origin of working class¹

First recorded in 1805–15

Origin of working-class²

First recorded in 1830–40

Example Sentences

If we don’t tip service employees, it calls into question our respect for the working class and our commitment to decent, well-paid work.

From Slate • Jun. 2, 2026

That has major ramifications for the American working class.

From The Wall Street Journal • May 27, 2026

The daughter of a Spanish father and a Nigerian mother, Lopez was born in 2006 in the tight-knit working class Madrid neighbourhood of Vallecas.

From BBC • May 22, 2026

Regardless of how well their homes blend in, any sale of a home in California’s sky-high real estate market, by an investor or otherwise, potentially squeezes the middle and working class.

From Los Angeles Times • May 21, 2026

These people, whose origins lay in the salaried middle class and the upper grades of the working class, had been shaped and brought together by the barren world of monopoly industry and centralized government.

From "1984" by George Orwell