Word.ws English Dictionary

fourth estate

fourth estate noun: a hypothetical fourth class of civic subjects, or fourth body (in Britain, after the Crown, and the two Houses of Parliament) which governed legislation.

Noun

fourth estate

  1. (obsolete) A hypothetical fourth class of civic subjects, or fourth body (in Britain, after the Crown, and the two Houses of Parliament) which governed legislation.
    • What is more barbarous than to see a nation […] where justice is lawfully denied him, that hath not wherewithall to pay for it; and that this merchandize hath so great credit, that in a politicall government there should be set up a fourth estate [tr. quatriesme estat] of Lawyers, breathsellers and...1603, John Florio, translating Michel de Montaigne, Folio Society 2006, vol. 1 p. 104
  2. (idiomatic) Journalism or journalists considered as a group; the press.
    • “Of what profession is Mr. Archer?”
      “Of the Corporation of the Goosequill—of the Press, my boy,” said Warrington; “of the fourth estate.”1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 31, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published...
    • The fourth estate is a term to describe the power that journalists and news media have to keep the powers of government in check by informing the citizens. The way citizens have received news and information has always evolved, but throughout that whole time, having an informed audience was seen as...2020, AlternateHistoryHub, 16:26 from the start, in The 2010s: A Reflection Back On A Wacky Decade, spoken by Cody Franklin

fourth estate meaning in Indonesian and Persian

fourth estate in Indonesian

press
hak kuasa keempat

fourth estate in Persian

press
رکن چهارم مشروطیت

Origin of fourth estate

The three (in England) estates were originally the three classes of people who could participate in government, either directly or by electing representatives – originally the clergy, barons/knights, and the commons (though they changed over time). Later the "three estates" were misunderstood as being the three governmental powers necessary for legislation: the Crown, the House of Lords, and the House of Commons; from there, the idea of a "fourth estate" was often used in satirical or jocular expressions, before developing a fixed association with the Press. In the modern sense often attributed to Edmund Burke (1787), popularized by essayist William Hazlitt in the 19th century.

Questions about fourth estate

What does fourth estate mean?
Fourth estate means a hypothetical fourth class of civic subjects, or fourth body (in Britain, after the Crown, and the two Houses of Parliament) which governed legislation.
What is fourth estate in Indonesian?
Fourth estate in Indonesian is hak kuasa keempat. See Fourth estate meaning in Indonesian.
What part of speech is fourth estate?
Fourth estate is a noun.

Words near fourth estate in the dictionary

  1. Fourth Day
  2. fourth digit
  3. fourth dimension
  4. fourth down
  5. fourth downs
  6. fourth estate
  7. fourth finger
  8. fourth fingers
  9. fourth freedom rights
  10. fourth gear
  11. fourth gears

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: fourth estate (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-fourth estate.ogg.

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