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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

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

Etymology

Origin of working class¹

First recorded in 1805–15

Origin of working-class²

First recorded in 1830–40

Example Sentences

Charles Murray used Fishtown as his archetype for the decline of the working class in his 2012 book, “Coming Apart: The State of White America 1960-2010.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Jun. 5, 2026

Although Holman is accustomed to working on glamorous big budget productions, he is also fiercely proud of his working class roots.

From BBC • Jun. 2, 2026

If we don’t tip service employees, it calls into question our respect for the working class and our commitment to decent, well-paid work.

From Slate • Jun. 2, 2026

The daughter of a Spanish father and a Nigerian mother, Lopez was born in 2006 in the tight-knit working class Madrid neighbourhood of Vallecas.

From BBC • May 22, 2026

For a 20-year-old, white child of the working class, Those horizons were far closer than I like to admit.

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