Skip to main content
Glite Dictionary
petty bourgeoisie

petty bourgeoisie

1 8.7
A social class of small shop and business owners and lower level professionals
  • noun
  • /ˈpɛti bʊrʒwɑːˈzi/
  • Specialized
translation icon : pequeña burguesía
  • The petty bourgeoisie, that's the small bourgeoisie, the small business owners.
  • petty bourgeoisie class

The petty bourgeoisie, that's the small bourgeoisie, the small business owners.

Examples

  • Many small shopkeepers and self-employed individuals belong to the petty bourgeoisie.

  • The main political objective behind Zairianization was to enlarge the size of the African middle class or petty bourgeoisie, which would strongly support the regime.

    Academic text (1992)

  • Our closest friends are the entire semi-proletariat - and the petty bourgeoisie.

    Volunteers (1985)

  • The petty bourgeoisie is still in the single digits in most countries, but there was an appreciable rise during the 1990s.

    Academic text (2003)

  • Support for his vision came primarily from theology students, segments of the bazaar, elements of the clergy, and the petty bourgeoisie.

    Academic text (2003)

  • Owners of such firms, employing up to five workers, plus own-account professionals and technicians, comprise the petty bourgeoisie.

    Academic text (2003)

  • Students were the largest group (26%), followed by the petty bourgeoisie (22%), the latter covering the self-employed, such as shopkeepers.

    Academic text (2002)

  • The petty bourgeoisie is estimated as the sum of owners of microenterprises, employing less than five workers, plus own-account professionals and technicians.

    Academic text (2003)

  • Iran's economic woes have also had a deleterious impact on the regime's key constituency, the poor and the petty bourgeoisie.

    Academic text (2003)

  • The Algerian revolution was a peasant revolution led by lower middle-class (or petty bourgeoisie), generally French-educated men who also saw themselves as Muslims.

    Academic text (1998)

Synonyms

petite bourgeoisie
vspetty bourgeoisie
  • Jargon
1 9.3

Lower middle class people like small shopkeepers and office workers

is the same group but uses a different form of the term

Antonyms

elite
258 4.7

A small group of the most powerful or rich people in a society

upper class
15 3.4

A social group with the most money and power

How Wealthy

bourgeoisie
11 8.4
middle class
516 2.0
petty bourgeoisie
  • Specialized
1 8.7
working class
69 2.8

Surface Forms

petty bourgeoisie singular
petty bourgeoisies plural

Morphology

petty + bourgeoisie

The meaning 'the small-scale or lower middle class of small business owners' is directly inferable from combining 'petty' (small/insignificant) with 'bourgeoisie' (the property-owning middle class). This compositional pattern is cross-linguistically common (e.g., French 'petite bourgeoisie'), so a learner who knows both constituents can readily reconstruct the MWE's meaning despite any technical Marxist nuance.

Etymology

Petty bourgeoisie comes from French words: petty meaning 'small' and bourgeoisie meaning 'middle class' or town business people. It named small shop owners, small business people and lower professionals who sat between workers and the rich, so today it means the lower part of the 'middle class'.