working class

Noun

working class (plural working classes)

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 to do anything for them, you must rule them, not pamper them.1918, W[illiam] B[abington] Maxwell, chapter XIII, in The Mirror and the Lamp, Indianapolis, Ind.: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, →OCLC
   • 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 would allow the working classes to live in London. Cheap trains would supersede...2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 47

   Synonyms:

   proletariat