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.
(broadly) working class.
of or relating to the lower class
inferior or vulgar
First recorded in 1765–75
First recorded in 1890–95
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
With shaved head and visible tattoos, Iago is in a lower class than Lucas Iverson’s clean-cut Cassio, fueling Iago’s raging resentment of his rival, chosen by the general Othello to be his second in command.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 1, 2026
"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.
From BBC ● Apr. 27, 2025
Instead, she and two of her sisters each moved to Mexico City to do one of the few jobs available to them as lower class women: domestic work.
From Seattle Times ● May 26, 2024
Alberto Carvalho said the district is prepared to manage the transition without layoffs — and he also pledged improved student support through lower class sizes, additional counselors and increased mental health services.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 21, 2023
Very few respondents called themselves lower class or upper class—7 percent and 1 percent.
From "Class Matters" by The New York Times
They are particularly alarmed about certain groups possibly ending up paying more for loans than their peers — a daunting prospect today given the cost of living crisis among the nation’s middle- and lower-class.
From MarketWatch ● Dec. 17, 2025
I was raised in a lower-class, white, rural American household in the 1970s and '80s.
From Salon ● Nov. 3, 2024
Over the course of this war, the money from the Delian League enriched many lower-class Athenians, who found employment as rowers in the fleet.
From Textbooks ● Apr. 19, 2023
In Hermosa Provincia, a lower-class neighborhood in Guadalajara where the evangelical church is based, hundreds of congregants made their way to the towering temple Wednesday to pray for Garcia the morning of the sentencing.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 8, 2022
King may have embraced direct action, but in the early 1960s he was still very much the product of his black middle-class upbringing, and he would occasionally lash out against stereotyped lower-class behaviors.
From "The Best of Enemies" by Osha Gray Davidson
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
