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 working class is already losing so much,” she said.

From The Wall Street Journal

“What we saw this week was a rising generation of Angelenos and working class people saying we don’t have the luxury of waiting on a decision,” she told The Times.

From Los Angeles Times

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

CSJ said figures also showed white working class boys on free school meals were among the least likely to remain in education after the age of 16.

From BBC

His working class Mexican family, who moved often between Baja California, L.A.,

From Los Angeles Times