as in poor
belonging to the class of people of middle social or economic rank
She grew up in a middle-class neighborhood, as did most of her classmates.
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Dissimilar Words
as in working class
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Example Sentences
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Recent Examples of middle class
Matthew Geiger, Denver Post, 4 July 2025
This legislation will create thousands of good-paying jobs to boost our economy, ensure the middle class keeps more money in their pockets, and invest in a brighter future for America.
—Todd Spangler, Freep.com, 3 July 2025
Mike De Vere, Forbes.com, 24 July 2025
Reeling from scandals in the 1870s, baseball’s owners consciously sought to make the sport respectable by broadening its upper- and middle-class fan-base.
—Matthew Wills, JSTOR Daily, 23 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for middle class
Adjective
Denver Mayor Mike Johnston is giving up some property tax dollars to get more homes built for the city’s middle class.
—Matthew Geiger, Denver Post, 4 July 2025
This legislation will create thousands of good-paying jobs to boost our economy, ensure the middle class keeps more money in their pockets, and invest in a brighter future for America.
—Todd Spangler, Freep.com, 3 July 2025
Noun
In many cases, the rate of return on a college education remains considerable: Income tends to increase with education, and a college degree is increasingly required to start a career and, in turn, afford a middle-class lifestyle.
—Mike De Vere, Forbes.com, 24 July 2025
Reeling from scandals in the 1870s, baseball’s owners consciously sought to make the sport respectable by broadening its upper- and middle-class fan-base.
—Matthew Wills, JSTOR Daily, 23 July 2025
See All Example Sentences for middle class
Recent Examples of Synonyms for middle class
Adjective
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Spurred by climate change, Canadian wildfires have increasingly exacerbated poor air quality across Milwaukee and southern Wisconsin.—
Maia Pandey,
jsonline.com,
24 July 2025
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Because her judgment is so poor, your aggressively driving grandmother should not be behind the wheel.—
Jeanne Phillips,
Mercury News,
23 July 2025
Noun
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Like so many cities in America, though perhaps more so in working class three-shift towns, New Britain was filled with enormous three-floor, three-family wooden houses, each with apartments stacked one atop the other.—
Jody Mamone,
Hartford Courant,
17 July 2025
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Solid working class, my dad often worked two, sometimes even three, tough physical jobs to support his large family.—
Donna Vickroy,
Chicago Tribune,
11 July 2025
Adjective
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Middle-aged and yet still pathetically upwardly mobile, John is the harbinger here, and his nasty bourgeois values, coming between Elsie and Colleen, turn out to the be the meat in the sandwich.—
Damon Wise,
Deadline,
6 June 2025
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Isabella Cosse writes that Quino was attacked both by the left (for being too bourgeois to offer a real critique of the political repression) and by the right (for being too friendly to subversive groups).—
Daniel Alarcón,
New Yorker,
30 June 2025
Noun
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This kind of soft satire also puts me in mind of Dorothy West, who excellently sent up a nascent Black bourgeoisie in novels like The Wedding.—
Brittany Allen
July 10,
Literary Hub,
10 July 2025
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Most readers will be surprised to learn, for instance, that one of the early boosters of the venture was the American civil rights leader W. E. B. Du Bois, who would soon regret having believed that Fire-stone could hasten the emergence of an independent African bourgeoisie.—
Gregg Mitman,
Foreign Affairs,
19 Oct. 2021
Adjective
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Looking for their environmental DNA in scales, slime or skin cells that living beings shed all the time is a simpler way, Workman said.—
Madeline Heim,
jsonline.com,
24 July 2025
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The updates are a stark contrast to the simple designs favored by past presidents like Joe Biden and Barack Obama.—
Meredith Kile,
People.com,
23 July 2025
Adjective
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With stores strategically located near construction hubs in working-class urban and suburban areas, the company’s business model catered to small contractors more than Lowe’s, True Value and Ace Hardware.—
Nathaniel Meyersohn,
CNN Money,
18 July 2025
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Epstein was born in 1953 to working-class Jewish parents in Brooklyn and grew up in Sea Gate, a working-class neighborhood on Coney Island.—
Robert Schmad,
The Washington Examiner,
18 July 2025
Cite this Entry
“Middle class.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/middle%20class. Accessed 2 Aug. 2025.
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