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

The EFF, also known locally as the red berets, are known for their signature red overalls worn by party leaders in parliament, meant to symbolise their affinity with South Africa's working class.

From BBC • Apr. 17, 2026

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

From Los Angeles Times • Apr. 14, 2026

Many college-educated Americans, he contends, wind up in working-class retail and service-sector jobs that don’t use their education or in professional jobs that have become more “proletarianized” and therefore more 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

These people, whose origins lay in the salaried middle class and the upper grades of the working class, had been shaped and brought together by the barren world of monopoly industry and centralized government.

From "1984" by George Orwell