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Glite Dictionary
class war

class war

5 5.8
A fight between rich and poor groups over money and power
  • noun
  • /klæs wɔr/
translation icon : guerra de clases
  • If you believe that class war is the only way through to the new utopia, you're not interested in compromise.

They use culture wars to keep their eye off the ball of the class wars because what's really going on here are class wars.

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Examples

  • Age of Betrayal covers over 35 years of class war against the American working classes and the politics behind it.

    Blog text (2)

  • Tony Blair remarked in September 1999 that "the class war is over" (Blair 1999).

    Academic text (2016)

  • I remember when there was criticism of the class war theme.

    Blog text (4)

  • But when the class war comes, Neptune will be ground zero.

    Veronica Mars (2014)

  • Had they just let the laborer win the class war, they would have been better off.

    Blog text (16)

  • But you can't win the class war if you keep giving the other side ammunition.

    Blog text (2)

  • Now you get typical class war: the people against the out-of-touch elites.

    Blog text (28)

  • The crises are fostering a class war that will dwarf anything imagined by Karl Marx.

    Blog text (33)

  • The ongoing disputes between the wealthy and the poor have led to a serious class war in many cities.

  • Many believe that corporations are waging a class war against the rights of the working class.

Synonyms

class warfare
vsclass war
24 6.4

Conflict between rich and working people over money and power

is a general word for social group conflict, not only hostility
class struggle
vsclass war
4 5.4

A conflict between rich owners and workers over money and power

is broader, naming social group conflict beyond political movement framing

Antonyms

collegiality
  • Formal
3 6.5

A cooperative, respectful way people who work together share tasks and decisions

How Intense

class war
5 5.8
class warfare
24 6.4

Surface Forms

class war singular
class wars plural

Morphology

class + war

The meaning 'conflict between social or economic classes' is directly and compositionally derived from 'class' (social grouping) + 'war' (an organized conflict or figurative struggle). The figurative use of 'war' to denote intense conflict is cross-linguistically common, so a B1 learner who knows both constituent words should be able to infer the MWE's meaning.

Etymology

The term class war comes from a simple picture: two social groups fighting. Writers in the 1800s used it to show how one class (workers) and another class (owners) were in a kind of war over money and power, so today class war means 'conflict between social or economic classes'.