mid·dle-class
ˌmi-dᵊl-ˈklas 
: of or relating to the middle class
especially
: characterized by a high material standard of living, sexual morality, and respect for property
: a class occupying a position between the upper class and the lower class
especially
: a fluid heterogeneous socioeconomic grouping composed principally of business and professional people, bureaucrats, and some farmers and skilled workers sharing common social characteristics and values
Examples of middle-class in a Sentence
Recent Examples on the Web
Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times, 17 Apr. 2024
Coming from a middle-class family in Hauts-de-France in the country’s Northeast, Claudel began working with clay at the age of 12.
—Jordan Riefe, The Hollywood Reporter, 17 Apr. 2024
Behind these righteous pronouncements, though, lurked Storer’s unspoken fear: that if men like him did not intervene, middle-class wives would shirk their childbearing duties, leaving their husbands without heirs while poor and immigrant families swelled their ranks.
—TIME, 15 Apr. 2024
And the resurgence of union organizing and collective bargaining has revived a once common trajectory to a comfortable middle-class life.
—Ron Elving, NPR, 13 Apr. 2024
Earl Tupper, the product’s namesake, was a serial inventor who used mid-century advances in plastics technology to develop the first range of airtight food containers affordable for middle-class households.
—Amanda Mull, The Atlantic, 12 Apr. 2024
Biden, who talks a lot about his middle-class upbringing and the kitchen table concerns of Americans, has proposed a minimum tax for billionaires of 25%.
—Colleen Long, Quartz, 12 Apr. 2024
Maintaining the lifestyles of middle-class America (and elsewhere globally) is untenable.
—Letters To The Editor, The Mercury News, 12 Apr. 2024
Miller, a member of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe, said developing more middle-class jobs, housing, and quality education and health care is necessary for Native tribes, cultures and communities to exist and thrive.
—The Arizona Republic, 4 Apr. 2024
Bloomberg, Fortune Asia, 17 Apr. 2024
Three years after the military seized power in a coup, the economic situation in the country has rapidly deteriorated to a point where the middle class is at risk of being wiped out and families are forced to cut back on food, health and education due to soaring inflation, the report found.
—Helen Regan, CNN, 12 Apr. 2024
Staff Pick: Why China’s middle class is losing confidence
Vika Chen in a cafe in Beijing, on March 28.Fred Dufour / NBC News
After decades of breakneck growth, the Chinese economy is slowing down.
—Elizabeth Robinson, NBC News, 11 Apr. 2024
The country’s middle class faces significant challenges, among them financial struggles, access to health care, education costs and a lack of social mobility.
—Aaron Boorstein, Smithsonian Magazine, 5 Apr. 2024
Compared with nearby Bend — a bacchanalia of Gore-Tex and microbreweries where the median home price hovers above $700,000 — Redmond is middle class.
—ProPublica, 16 Mar. 2024
And Joe Biden has a vision for the future of an inclusive economy that grows the middle class and ensures things like home ownership within the African American community can continue to grow.
—CBS News, 10 Mar. 2024
The same wealth inequality that plagues American society can be seen in Hollywood, where the big get richer and the middle class is routinely squeezed or forgotten entirely.
—Ann Hornaday, Washington Post, 8 Mar. 2024
The president emphasized his support of working families and the middle class in particular, vowing that no one earning less than $400,000 a year would pay more in federal taxes.
—Emma Burleigh, Fortune, 8 Mar. 2024
Adjective
Claudel was born into a solidly middle-class family in 1864, daughter of a registrar of deeds in a small medieval town 60 miles from Paris.
—Christopher Knight, Los Angeles Times, 17 Apr. 2024
Coming from a middle-class family in Hauts-de-France in the country’s Northeast, Claudel began working with clay at the age of 12.
—Jordan Riefe, The Hollywood Reporter, 17 Apr. 2024
Behind these righteous pronouncements, though, lurked Storer’s unspoken fear: that if men like him did not intervene, middle-class wives would shirk their childbearing duties, leaving their husbands without heirs while poor and immigrant families swelled their ranks.
—TIME, 15 Apr. 2024
And the resurgence of union organizing and collective bargaining has revived a once common trajectory to a comfortable middle-class life.
—Ron Elving, NPR, 13 Apr. 2024
Earl Tupper, the product’s namesake, was a serial inventor who used mid-century advances in plastics technology to develop the first range of airtight food containers affordable for middle-class households.
—Amanda Mull, The Atlantic, 12 Apr. 2024
Biden, who talks a lot about his middle-class upbringing and the kitchen table concerns of Americans, has proposed a minimum tax for billionaires of 25%.
—Colleen Long, Quartz, 12 Apr. 2024
Maintaining the lifestyles of middle-class America (and elsewhere globally) is untenable.
—Letters To The Editor, The Mercury News, 12 Apr. 2024
Miller, a member of the Eastern Shawnee Tribe, said developing more middle-class jobs, housing, and quality education and health care is necessary for Native tribes, cultures and communities to exist and thrive.
—The Arizona Republic, 4 Apr. 2024
Noun
The majority of marketplace users are middle class, a group highly exposed to the country’s ongoing economic slowdown.
—Bloomberg, Fortune Asia, 17 Apr. 2024
Three years after the military seized power in a coup, the economic situation in the country has rapidly deteriorated to a point where the middle class is at risk of being wiped out and families are forced to cut back on food, health and education due to soaring inflation, the report found.
—Helen Regan, CNN, 12 Apr. 2024
Staff Pick: Why China’s middle class is losing confidence
Vika Chen in a cafe in Beijing, on March 28.Fred Dufour / NBC News
After decades of breakneck growth, the Chinese economy is slowing down.
—Elizabeth Robinson, NBC News, 11 Apr. 2024
The country’s middle class faces significant challenges, among them financial struggles, access to health care, education costs and a lack of social mobility.
—Aaron Boorstein, Smithsonian Magazine, 5 Apr. 2024
Compared with nearby Bend — a bacchanalia of Gore-Tex and microbreweries where the median home price hovers above $700,000 — Redmond is middle class.
—ProPublica, 16 Mar. 2024
And Joe Biden has a vision for the future of an inclusive economy that grows the middle class and ensures things like home ownership within the African American community can continue to grow.
—CBS News, 10 Mar. 2024
The same wealth inequality that plagues American society can be seen in Hollywood, where the big get richer and the middle class is routinely squeezed or forgotten entirely.
—Ann Hornaday, Washington Post, 8 Mar. 2024
The president emphasized his support of working families and the middle class in particular, vowing that no one earning less than $400,000 a year would pay more in federal taxes.
—Emma Burleigh, Fortune, 8 Mar. 2024
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'middle-class.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near middle-class
Cite this Entry
“Middle-class.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/middle-class. Accessed 23 Apr. 2024.
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