working class
noun · adjective
Simple meaning
A social class including those who do manual labor or work for wages.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
wurkihngklasSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈwɝkɪŋkˈlæs
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
A social class comprising those who do manual labor or work for wages
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
Of or pertaining to the working class; suggestive of the working class in manner of speaking, outlook, appearance, or other qualities.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A social class comprising those who do manual labor or work for wages
Used this way, working class is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It usually sounds natural in a wide range of settings.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Neutral
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Matter-of-fact
- Usage feel
- Neutral and straightforward
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.