noun
Meaning 1
The poorest class of people in a given society.
Definition source: English Wiktionary via Wiktextract
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: none provided
Antonyms: none provided
Standard Lemma guide
underclass
Definitions and examples are grouped by meaning. Pronunciation, history, word forms, translations, descendants, synonyms, antonyms, derived terms, and related words appear whenever the source provides them.
Sound
Pronunciation
Each Play button uses your device's default local English voice, or a natural local fallback. The selected voice name appears after playback. This is synthesized speech, not a source recording.
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US: Recorded audio is listed in the source snapshot.
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CMU ARPABET: AH1 N D ER0 K L AE2 S Digits mark lexical stress: 1 primary, 2 secondary, 0 unstressed.
noun
Meaning 2
the social class lowest in the social hierarchy
Definition source: Princeton WordNet 3.0
No example sentence was provided for this meaning.
Meaning relationships
Synonyms: lower class
Antonyms: none provided
Broader terms: class, stratum, social class, socio-economic class
History
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *h1én Proto-Indo-European *h1entér Proto-Indo-European *(H)n̥dhí Proto-Indo-European *-ér Proto-Indo-European *(H)n̥dhér Proto-Germanic *under Proto-West Germanic *undar Old English under- Middle English under- English under- English class English underclass From under- + class.