Adjacent Words

proletariat definitions

	Tweet

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

n
1: a social class comprising those who do manual labor or work for wages; "there is a shortage of skilled labor in this field" [syn: labor, labour, working class, proletariat]

Merriam Webster's

noun Etymology: French prolétariat, from Latin proletarius Date: 1852 1. the laboring class; especially the class of industrial workers who lack their own means of production and hence sell their labor to live 2. the lowest social or economic class of a community

Oxford Reference Dictionary

n. (also proletariate) 1 a Econ. wage-earners collectively, esp. those without capital and dependent on selling their labour. b esp. derog. the lowest class of the community, esp. when considered as uncultured. 2 Rom.Hist. the lowest class of citizens. Etymology: F prolétariat (as PROLETARIAN)

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Proletariat Prol`e*ta"ri*at, n. [F.] The indigent class in the State; the body of proletarians.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

The proletariat is a term used to refer to workers without high status, especially industrial workers. ...a struggle between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. = working class N-SING-COLL: the N

Soule's Dictionary of English Synonyms

n. Laboring class, the commonalty, the lower classes.

Moby Thesaurus

bourgeoisie, common people, common run, common sort, commonage, commonality, commonalty, commoners, commons, laborers, linendrapers, lower classes, lower middle class, lower orders, lumpen proletariat, middle class, middle orders, ordinary people, peasantry, plain folks, plain people, rank and file, shopkeepers, small tradesmen, the lower cut, the other half, the third estate, toilers, toiling class, upper middle class, vulgus, working class, working people