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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

• working classes
  plural

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

Inflected Forms

Nouns

• working classes
  plural

Etymology

Origin of working class¹

First recorded in 1805–15

Origin of working-class²

First recorded in 1830–40

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

working class working-class

It was the perfect environment for two blue-collar communities: San Pedro, known for its bustling port and dock workers, and Bell, known as a densely packed working class industrial city.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 12, 2026

In a statement, he added that the name of the unit posed "obvious problems of definition" and "risks being deeply patronising, to equate being working class with being disadvantaged".

From BBC ● Sep. 9, 2026

Fitzpatrick said research showed children from working class backgrounds tended to be "educationally further ahead" than their peers from socially disadvantaged backgrounds, and argued the education minister's plans would widen this disparity.

From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2026

Conversely, most Americans without a college degree do not identify as working class.

From Salon ● Aug. 9, 2026

Janny Scott took as her map the newfound statistical evidence showing that the upper middle class lived longer and healthier lives than the middle class, which in turn did better than the working class.

From "Class Matters" by The New York Times

They both have steady jobs in public services — normal, working-class people like me and my husband.

From MarketWatch ● Sep. 17, 2026

Many working-class Latinas work in jobs that serve the community, such as in the childcare, elder care, teaching or social services sectors.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 17, 2026

Definitions of what makes a working-class voter differ depending on who you ask.

From Salon ● Sep. 9, 2026

Meanwhile, speaking to The Nolan Show, Fitzpatrick said she understood "working-class parents have frustrations but that's not on the back of these three and four-year-old children."

From BBC ● Sep. 8, 2026

Her application listed her name, Oleksandra Wojcik, her age, nineteen, her address in a working-class suburb.

From "Not Nothing" by Gayle Forman