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

Beer, memorabilia, and hints of growth On the quiet old Main Street in Oneida, a blue-collar commercial hub of 3,800 on the east side of the park, where dump trucks rumble down a nearby two-lane highway, Jimmy Barna was preparing to open the city’s first brewpub for the day. —Chris Kenning, USA Today, 25 Nov. 2025

Amid these concerns over the future of blue-collar workers in Amazon’s warehouses came the news of a major round of layoffs—of white-collar workers. —Jason Del Rey, Fortune, 25 Nov. 2025

The novel is divided into three parts, the first of which is an extended prologue recounting Catt’s upbringing in a small blue-collar town in Connecticut. —Victor J. Blue, Harpers Magazine, 23 Nov. 2025

To determine the jobs a disability applicant might be able to do, Social Security has long relied on a database compiled by the Labor Department, which abandoned the list more than 30 years ago as the economy shifted away from blue-collar work to information and services. —Lisa Rein, Arkansas Online, 23 Nov. 2025

Word History

First Known Use

1929, in the meaning defined at sense 1

Rhymes for blue-collar

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

Kids Definition

blue-collar

adjective

ˈblü-ˈkäl-ər

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