Library / English Dictionary

PROLETARIAT

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

 I. (noun) 

Sense 1

Meaning:

A social class comprising those who do manual labor or work for wages

Example:

there is a shortage of skilled labor in this field

Synonyms:

labor; labour; proletariat; working class

Classified under:

Nouns denoting groupings of people or objects

Hypernyms ("proletariat" is a kind of...):

class; social class; socio-economic class; stratum (people having the same social, economic, or educational status)

Meronyms (members of "proletariat"):

prole; proletarian; worker (a member of the working class (not necessarily employed))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "proletariat"):

labor force; labor pool (the source of trained people from which workers can be hired)

lumpenproletariat ((Marxism) the unorganized lower levels of the proletariat who are not interested in revolutionary advancement)

organized labor (employees who are represented by a labor union)

Derivation:

proletarian (belonging to or characteristic of the proletariat)

Credits