blue-collar

adjective

blue-col·​lar ˈblü-ˈkä-lər 

1

: of, relating to, or constituting the class of wage earners whose duties call for the wearing of work clothes or protective clothing compare white-collar

2

: having characteristics associated with blue-collar workers: such as

a

: having, showing, or appealing to unpretentious or unsophisticated tastes

… a new blue-collar serial … woven around a minor-league baseball team …

—Steven Flax

b

: dependable and hard-working rather than showy or spectacular

a blue-collar athlete

Examples of blue-collar in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Doug worked every blue-collar job under the sun and made Tucker do chores on the farm from a young age. — Matt Schneidman, New York Times, 8 Sep. 2026

Many older blue-collar workers – many of them former union members – across New England, the Great Lakes, Ohio and western Pennsylvania remain angry about the epic industrial collapse of the 1970s and 1980s. — The Conversation, Fortune, 7 Sep. 2026

Democrats have not completely lost that base, but there has been a trend of blue-collar workers moving away from the party, according to a survey by Center for Labor and a Just Economy in collaboration with the Columbia Labor Lab. — Emily R. Condon, USA Today, 7 Sep. 2026

The story concerns a blue-collar couple, Ho-seok (Sul Kyung-gu) and his wife Mi-ok (Jeon Do-yeon), still struggling to bounce back from the loss of his factory job two years earlier after a brutal government crackdown on striking employees. — David Rooney, HollywoodReporter, 6 Sep. 2026

Word History

First Known Use

1929, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for blue-collar

• footballer
• installer
• caller
• choler
• collar
• crawler
• dollar
• faller
• haller
• hauler
• holler
• scholar

Kids Definition

blue-collar

adjective

ˈblü-ˈkäl-ər

: of or relating to the class of workers whose duties require work clothes