middle class: Meaning and Definition of

mid'dle class'

Pronunciation: [key]
  1. a class of people intermediate between the classes of higher and lower social rank or standing; the social, economic, cultural class, having approximately average status, income, education, tastes, and the like.
  2. the class traditionally intermediate between the aristocratic class and the laboring class.
  3. an intermediate class.

mid•dle-class

Pronunciation: (mid'l-klas', -kläs'), [key]
— adj.
  1. of, pertaining to, or characteristic of the middle class; bourgeois: middle-class taste; middle-class morality.
Random House Unabridged Dictionary, Copyright © 1997, by Random House, Inc., on Infoplease.