Word.ws English Dictionary

precariat

precariat noun: people suffering from precarity, especially as a social class; people living a precarious existence, without security or predictability, especially job security.

Noun

precariat (countable and uncountable, plural precariats)

  1. (collective) People suffering from precarity, especially as a social class; people living a precarious existence, without security or predictability, especially job security.
    • The global precariat is not yet a class in the Marxian sense, being internally divided and only united in fears and insecurities. But it is a class in the making, approaching a consciousness of common vulnerability.2011 June 1, Guy Standing, “Who will be a voice for the emerging precariat?”, in The Guardian
    • Professor [Stephanie] Luce characterized the protesters who had problems finding full-time work as part of an emerging demographic that some commentators call the “precariat” — educated people forced into unsteady or insecure jobs because little else is available.2013 January 28, Colin Moynihan, “In 'Occupy,' Well-Educated Professionals Far Outnumbered Jobless, Study Finds”, in New York Times City Room

Examples of precariat in a sentence

  • The American Precariat seems more hunkered down, insecure, risk averse, relying on friends and family but without faith in American possibilities.2014 February 11, David Brooks, “The American Precariat”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:
  • It was populated by members of the “precariat”: temporary laborers doing short-term jobs in exchange for low wages.2017 December 2, Jessica Bruder, “Living in cars, working for Amazon: meet America's new nomads”, in The Guardian:

Forms of precariat

pluralprecariats

Origin of precariat

Blend of precarious + proletariat, emerging from the socio-economic theories of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and popularized by economist Guy Standing in his book The Precariat (2011).

Questions about precariat

What does precariat mean?
Precariat means people suffering from precarity, especially as a social class; people living a precarious existence, without security or predictability, especially job security.
How do you use precariat in a sentence?
The American Precariat seems more hunkered down, insecure, risk averse, relying on friends and family but without faith in American possibilities.
What part of speech is precariat?
Precariat is a noun.
What is the plural of precariat?
The plural of precariat is precariats.

Words near precariat in the dictionary

  1. precardiomyogenic
  2. precardioversion
  3. precare
  4. precaria
  5. precarial
  6. precariat
  7. precariats
  8. precarious
  9. precariously
  10. precariousness
  11. precarisation

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: precariat (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.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-us-precariat.oga.

Cite this entry: “precariat.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/precariat. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.