the proletariat

noun

: the lowest social or economic class of a community
especially : the working class

Examples of the proletariat in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web Didn’t think so — but other circumstances have the zero-consumption party tactic trickling down to the proletariat. Pamela McClintock, The Hollywood Reporter, 6 Mar. 2024 He was inspired by the Mexican murals of Diego Rivera and José Clemente Orozco that depict the proletariat worker and wanted to use this format to present the daily grind of women in India. Grace Banks, Forbes, 13 Feb. 2024 What’s so attractive about examining the struggles of the proletariat, the vice of the bourgeois? Holly Jones, Variety, 26 Jan. 2024 But socio-economic implications aside, the bigger question (for the proletariat and bourgeois alike) is how does the new Popeyes sandwich actually taste? Emily Heil, Washington Post, 18 Oct. 2023 The upper classes’ ingestion of psychedelics to serve not themselves but the pitiless creative demands of capitalism is no less dehumanizing than the proletariat’s ingestion of crystal meth to increase capitalism’s demand for physical endurance. Timothy Noah, The New Republic, 28 June 2023 The philosophical difference between Maoism and Marxism–Leninism is that the peasantry are the revolutionary vanguard in pre-industrial societies rather than the proletariat. Matt B. Weir, Harper's Magazine, 11 Jan. 2022 After ignoring the class war raging outside of his swanky villa’s window, Bologne finally decides to join the efforts of the proletariat against the iron fist of the crown and her bourgeoisie. Ineye Komonibo, refinery29.com, 21 Apr. 2023 The party’s solution was to indoctrinate and incorporate non-Han peoples into the dictatorship of the proletariat. Ian Buruma, Harper's Magazine, 11 Jan. 2022

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'the proletariat.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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Cite this Entry

“The proletariat.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/the%20proletariat. Accessed 28 Mar. 2024.

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