working class

¹ American  

noun

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

• working-class adjective

Etymology

Origin of working class¹

First recorded in 1805–15

Origin of working-class²

First recorded in 1830–40

Example Sentences

Catholics have long served as a barometer of acceptance for newcomers and the working class.

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 14, 2026

Noam Scheiber, a veteran labor reporter at the New York Times, wants you to believe in the college-educated working class.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 12, 2026

In “Forging Democracy: The History of the Left in Europe, 1850–2000,” Geoff Eley writes that fascist violence was directed first and foremost against the organized working class and its institutions.

From Salon • Mar. 28, 2026

Frederiksen was born into a working class family of longstanding Social Democrats, her father a typographer and mother a pre-school teacher.

From Barron's • Mar. 25, 2026

I am 20, white, a child of the working class.

From "Geeks: How Two Lost Boys Rode the Internet Out of Idaho" by Jon Katz