Definition

1. Adjective:

   • Belonging to or characteristic of the middle class: Pertaining to the social class between the working class and the upper class, often associated with materialistic values, conventional attitudes, and a focus on security and prosperity.
   • Conventional and materialistic: Adhering to the mainstream social norms, values, and tastes of the middle class, often with a connotation of being unadventurous or overly concerned with respectability and possessions.
   • (In Marxist theory) Pertaining to the property-owning capitalist class: Relating to the bourgeoisie, the class that owns the means of production and is seen as exploiting the working class (proletariat).

2. Noun:

   • A member of the middle class: An individual belonging to the bourgeois social class.
   • (In Marxist theory) A capitalist: A member of the bourgeoisie; a person who owns capital, engages in commercial enterprise, and employs wage labor.

Examples of Usage

• Adjective:

  • They lived in a comfortable, bourgeois suburb. (They lived in a suburb typical of the middle class.)
  • His bourgeois attitudes made him disapprove of their unconventional lifestyle. (His conventional, middle-class attitudes caused his disapproval.)
  • The socialist criticized the bourgeois system of ownership. (The socialist criticized the capitalist system as defined by Marxist thought.)

• Noun:

  • The new policies benefited the urban bourgeois. (The new policies benefited the city's middle class.)
  • The revolution aimed to overthrow the power of the bourgeois. (The revolution aimed to overthrow the capitalist class.)

Advanced Usage

• "Petit bourgeois" (also "petty bourgeois"): Refers to the lower middle class, such as small shopkeepers or white-collar workers, often implying a preoccupation with respectability and social climbing.
  • His aspirations were distinctly petit bourgeois.
• Used as a pejorative term to criticize someone for being conventional, materialistic, or lacking in artistic or intellectual sophistication.
  • The artist rejected what he saw as bourgeois morality.

Variants and Related Words

• Bourgeoisie (noun): The middle class as a whole, especially with reference to its perceived materialistic values or, in Marxism, the capitalist class.
  • The rise of the bourgeoisie changed European society.
• Bourgeoisification (noun): The process of becoming bourgeois or middle-class in character.
• Embourgeoisement (noun): A sociological term for the process by which working-class people adopt middle-class values and lifestyles.

Synonyms

• Adjective (for conventional sense): Middle-class, conventional, materialistic, conservative, mainstream.
• Noun (for class member): Middle-class person, capitalist (in Marxist context).

Related Idioms and Phrases

• "Bourgeois values": The set of conventional beliefs associated with the middle class, such as emphasis on family, property, hard work, and social stability.
  • The novel is a critique of traditional bourgeois values.
• "Bourgeois revolution": A historical term for a revolution that aims to establish the political dominance of the bourgeoisie or middle class.
  • The French Revolution is often described as a bourgeois revolution.

Adjective

1. belonging to the middle class
2. conforming to the standards and conventions of the middle class
   • a bourgeois mentality
3. (according to Marxist thought) being of the property-owning class and exploitive of the working class

Noun

1. a member of the middle class
2. a capitalist who engages in industrial commercial enterprise