working class meaning: definition, quotations

working class

nounalso spelled working-class

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 Gladstone's well-meant Parliamentary Trains.2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 47:

working-class

adj

Of or pertaining to the working class; suggestive of the working class in manner of speaking, outlook, appearance, or other qualities.

There is one obvious sense in which working-class politics has declined in the last twenty years or so: the proportion of working-class people involved at various levels of party politics has dropped.1971, Barry Hindess, The Decline of Working-Class Politics, page 9:
Jean-Baptiste ordered herb soup, potatoes, and cheese along with two glasses of beer — a typical working-class lunch, he said to Aimee with a smile.1986, Theresa Conway, A Passion for Glory, page 78:

4 more examples

It was a very working-class crowd on the Kop, mainly dockers and the like.2001, Stephen Hopkins, Cathy Long, John Williams, Passing Rhythms: Liverpool FC and the Transformation of Football, page 27:
But Run Run Shaw and his brothers are sons of a Shanghai textile magnate, Lee Shau-kee comes from a wealthy banking and gold trading family from Shuntak county in Guangdong province, and Henry Fok - though from a genuinely working-class background - was set apart by a British government scholarship to an elite school.2007, Joe Studwell, “How to be a post-war godfather”, in Asian Godfathers: Money and Power in Hong Kong and Southeast Asia, 1st American edition, New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, →ISBN, →OCLC, page 55:
We're also witnessing the passing of something even more profound - a culture of working-class masculinity that has become an anachronism in the modern world.2009 May 20, Margaret Wente, “We are witnessing the passing of working-class masculinity”, in The Globe and Mail, archived from the original on 27 May 2009:
One of the areas in Hong Kong most profoundly impacted by the city’s third wave of coronavirus is Tsz Wan Shan. The usually bustling streets of the working-class neighbourhood in Kowloon now resemble a ghost town. Tsz Wan Shan has been the epicentre of a recent cluster of Covid-19 cases.2020 August 18, “Empty spaces in Tsz Wan Shan amid Hong Kong’s third wave of coronavirus”, in South China Morning Post, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 06 Sep 2021:

Synonyms: blue-collar