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working class

SEE SYNONYMS FOR working class

noun

those persons working for wages, especially in manual labor.
the social or economic class composed of these workers.

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Origin of working class

First recorded in 1805–15

OTHER WORDS FROM working class

working-class, adjective

Words nearby working class

working, working asset, working bee, working capital, working-capital fund, working class, working day, working dog, working drawing, Working Families Tax Credit, working fluid
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2020

Words related to working class

grass roots, proletariat, rank and file, plebeians, proles, workers, workfolk, workpeople

Example sentences from the Web for working class

British Dictionary definitions for working class

working class

noun

Also called: proletariat the social stratum, usually of low status, that consists of those who earn wages, esp as manual workersCompare lower class, middle class, upper class

adjective working-class

of, relating to, or characteristic of the working class
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Cultural definitions for working class

working class

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.

The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Copyright © 2005 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.