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• lower class
  lower class

  noun

  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.
• lower-class
  lower-class

  adjective

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

lower class

¹ American  

[loh-er] / ˈloʊ ər /

noun

• lower classes
  plural

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.

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lower-class ² American  

[loh-er-klas, -klahs] / ˈloʊ ərˈklæs, -ˈklɑs /

adjective

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

   lower-class values.

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lower class British  

noun

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

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adjective

1. of or relating to the lower class

2. inferior or vulgar

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• lower classes
  plural

Etymology

Origin of lower class¹

First recorded in 1765–75

Origin of lower-class²

First recorded in 1890–95

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

lower class lower-class

Much smaller shares, in the single digits, placed themselves at the far ends of the class spectrum, as upper class or lower class.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 26, 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

Lavin was the grandchild of Russian immigrants, and in later years she often played variations on the Jewish mother — lower class, middle class, upper class.

From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 30, 2024

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

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

Her image encouraged lower-class casta peasants to join the movement and fight under her banner.

From Textbooks ● Dec. 14, 2022

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

Despite the taint of ain’t from its origin in regional and lower-class English, and more than a century of vilification by schoolteachers, today the word is going strong.

From "The Sense of Style" by Steven Pinker

Related Words

• proletariat
• working class