bourgeois
pronunciation
How to pronounce bourgeois in British English:
UK [ˈbʊəʒwɑ:]
How to pronounce bourgeois in American English:
US [ˌbʊrˈʒwɑ]
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- Noun:
- a capitalist who engages in industrial commercial enterprise
- a member of the middle class
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- Adjective:
- (according to Marxist thought) being of the property-owning class and exploitive of the working class
- conforming to the standards and conventions of the middle class
- belonging to the middle class
Word Origin
- bourgeois
- bourgeois: see borough
- bourgeois (adj.)
- 1560s, "of the French middle class," from French bourgeois, from Old French burgeis, borjois "town dweller" (see bourgeoisie). Sense of "socially or aesthetically conventional" is from 1764; in communist and socialist writing, as a noun, "a capitalist" (1883).It is better to be a good ordinary bourgeois than a bad ordinary bohemian. [Aldous Huxley, 1930]
Antonym
Example
- 1. The marxist terminology of bourgeois and proletarian has an archaic ring .
- 2. It doesn 't attack fundamental bourgeois values .
- 3. This enabled him to explain why the german bourgeoisie wouldn 't lift a finger to fight for bourgeois ideals .
- 4. In bourgeois society the rules change .
- 5. In this way , bourgeois values were embedded into the wider culture .