lower-class

¹

[loh-er-klas, -klahs]

adjective

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

   lower-class values.

lower class

²

[loh-er]

noun

1. a class of people below the middle class, having the lowest social rank or standing due to low income, lack of skills or education, and the like.

2. (broadly) working class.

lower class

noun

1. the social stratum having the lowest position in the social hierarchy Compare middle class upper class working class

adjective

1. of or relating to the lower class

2. inferior or vulgar

Word History and Origins

Origin of lower-class¹

First recorded in 1890–95

Origin of lower-class²

First recorded in 1765–75

Example Sentences

Eliot would have been incapable of the kind of remark one comes on regularly in Woolf’s diary: “The fact is the lower classes are detestable.”

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And when you pair it with the notion that poverty is a sin, it's also used as a justification to plunder the lower classes, when even groups of people are seen as natural resources.

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"For the first time it was the Kenyan people - the working class and the middle class and the lower class - against the ruling class," says Mwangi.

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Under Shell's control, it became a successful weekly guide to women who found themselves in charge of both a household and a budget to outsource the daily drudgery to the lower classes.

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Doctors’ orders could be more harmful than beneficial, and hospitals were only for the lower classes, while the wealthy received medical care at home.

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Related Words

• proletariat 
• working class