middle-class
- of, relating to, or characteristic of the middle class; bourgeois: middle-class taste; middle-class morality.
Origin of middle-class
middle class
- a class of people intermediate between the classes of higher and lower social rank or standing; the social, economic, cultural class, having approximately average status, income, education, tastes, and the like.
- the class traditionally intermediate between the aristocratic class and the laboring class.
- an intermediate class.
Origin of middle class
Examples from the Web for middle-class
Contemporary Examples of middle-class
As a white, educated, Western, middle-class male, I possess most of the unearned privilege the world has to offer.
Memo to all Republican contenders: The GOP is now the home of white working- and middle-class voters.
The Affordable Care Act was always a short-term political loser with respect to middle-class voters.
For us, the police embrace nothing if not working- and middle-class values and morality.
Middle-class Congolese like himself, called “évolué,” or “evolved,” were hunted down for having ties with the Europeans.
Historical Examples of middle-class
This middle-class sentiment, or socialism, or whatever it may be, is rotten.
Strife (First Series Plays)John Galsworthy
I had read, in books by English writers, of the British middle-class Pharisee.
Kent Knowles: QuahaugJoseph C. Lincoln
The Manila middle-class native, in particular, possesses none of this.
The Philippine IslandsJohn Foreman
That is the life of the middle-class woman, as you probably know.
The Daffodil MysteryEdgar Wallace
England's middle-class government was the ideal of human progress.
The Education of Henry AdamsHenry Adams
middle class
- Also called: bourgeoisie a social stratum that is not clearly defined but is positioned between the lower and upper classes. It consists of businessmen, professional people, etc, along with their families, and is marked by bourgeois valuesCompare lower class, upper class, working class
- of, relating to, or characteristic of the middle class
Word Origin and History for middle-class
middle class
1766; as an adjective, "characteristic of the middle class" (depreciative) it dates from 1893.
middle class
A social and economic class composed of those more prosperous than the poor, or lower class, and less wealthy than the upper class. Middle class is sometimes loosely used to refer to the bourgeoisie. In the United States and other industrial countries, the term is often applied to white-collar, as opposed to blue-collar, workers.