working class

The social class of those who perform physical work for a living, as opposed to the professional or middle class, the upper class, or others.

Adjective

  1. Alternative spelling of working-class.
    • Socialism has never and nowhere been at first a working class movement. It is by no means an obvious remedy for an obvious evil which the interests of that class will necessarily demand. - 1949, F. A. Hayek, “The...

Forms

more working class most working class working-class before noun

Noun

  1. The social class of those who perform physical work for a living, as opposed to the professional or middle class, the upper class, or others.
    • And Vickers launched forth into a tirade very different from his platform utterances. He spoke with extreme contempt of the dense stupidity exhibited on all occasions by the working classes. He said that if you wanted...
    • It may seem that the Met was a snobbish outfit, a betrayer of the egalitarian dreams of Charles Pearson, but in being one of the pioneers of working men's fares the company had helped to bring about a revolution that...

    Synonyms: proletariat

    Coordinate Terms: lower class middle class professional class upper class upper middle class

Forms

working classes