ruling class
ruling class noun: the social class within a society that holds dominant power and controls its main institutions, especially those linked to the economy, politics, and the military.
Noun
ruling class (plural ruling classes)
- The social class within a society that holds dominant power and controls its main institutions, especially those linked to the economy, politics, and the military.
- One thing that has always shown that the English ruling class are morally fairly sound, is that in time of war they are ready enough to get themselves killed... What is to be expected of them is not treachery or physical cowardice, but stupidity, unconscious sabotage, an infallible instinct for...1941, George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn, Pt. I & II
- The ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas, i.e. the class which is the ruling material force of society, is at the same time its ruling intellectual force.1947, Anonymous translation of Karl Marx & al. as "Feuerbach" in The German Ideology, International Publishers Co., §I.B
ruling class meaning in Tagalog, Malay and Indonesian
ruling class in Tagalog
- social class
- naghaharing-uri
ruling class in Malay
- social class
- kelas pemerintah, golongan pemerintah
ruling class in Indonesian
- social class
- kelas penguasa, kelas berkuasa
Examples of ruling class in a sentence
- One thing that has always shown that the English ruling class are morally fairly sound, is that in time of war they are ready enough to get themselves killed...1941, George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn, Pt. I & II:
- For our ruling class, identity always trumps.2010 July 16, Angelo Codevilla, "America's Ruling Class", The Spectator
- We once had a coherent ruling class, the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs), who more or less owned and ran the United States from its founding through the 1970s.2021 Apr., Doug Henwood, "Take Me to Your Leader: The Rot of the American Ruling Class", Jacobin
- The C.C.P., like any of the more effective ancient Chinese ruling classes, diligently reads historical events for lessons.2021 July 1, Lian Yizheng, "The Chinese Communist Party Is 100. It's Not Going Anywhere.", New York Times
Forms of ruling class
| plural | ruling classes |
|---|
Origin of ruling class
From ruling + class. First use appears c. 1653.
Questions about ruling class
- What does ruling class mean?
- Ruling class means the social class within a society that holds dominant power and controls its main institutions, especially those linked to the economy, politics, and the military.
- What is ruling class in Tagalog?
- Ruling class in Tagalog is naghaharing-uri. See Ruling class meaning in Tagalog.
- How do you use ruling class in a sentence?
- One thing that has always shown that the English ruling class are morally fairly sound, is that in time of war they are ready enough to get themselves killed...
- What part of speech is ruling class?
- Ruling class is a noun.
- What is the plural of ruling class?
- The plural of ruling class is ruling classes.
Words near ruling class in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: ruling class (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:
Cite this entry: “ruling class.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ruling_class. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.
