BOURGEOIS

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 Dictionary entry overview: What does bourgeois mean? 

• BOURGEOIS (noun)
  The noun BOURGEOIS has 2 senses:

1. a capitalist who engages in industrial commercial enterprise

2. a member of the middle class

  Familiarity information: BOURGEOIS used as a noun is rare.

• BOURGEOIS (adjective)
  The adjective BOURGEOIS has 3 senses:

1. (according to Marxist thought) being of the property-owning class and exploitive of the working class

2. conforming to the standards and conventions of the middle class

3. belonging to the middle class

  Familiarity information: BOURGEOIS used as an adjective is uncommon.

 Dictionary entry details 

• BOURGEOIS (noun)

Sense 1

Meaning:

A capitalist who engages in industrial commercial enterprise

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

bourgeois; businessperson

Hypernyms ("bourgeois" is a kind of...):

capitalist (a person who invests capital in a business (especially a large business))

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "bourgeois"):

accountant; comptroller; controller (someone who maintains and audits business accounts)

account executive; account representative; customer's broker; customer's man; registered representative (someone in charge of a client's account for an advertising agency or brokerage or other service business)

agent; broker; factor (a businessman who buys or sells for another in exchange for a commission)

businessman; man of affairs (a person engaged in commercial or industrial business (especially an owner or executive))

businesswoman (a female businessperson)

enterpriser; entrepreneur (someone who organizes a business venture and assumes the risk for it)

exporter (a businessperson who transports goods abroad (for sale))

importer (someone whose business involves importing goods from outside (especially from a foreign country))

merchandiser; merchant (a businessperson engaged in retail trade)

shipper (someone who ships goods)

provider; supplier (someone whose business is to supply a particular service or commodity)

Sense 2

Meaning:

A member of the middle class

Classified under:

Nouns denoting people

Synonyms:

bourgeois; burgher

Hypernyms ("bourgeois" is a kind of...):

common man; common person; commoner (a person who holds no title)

Hyponyms (each of the following is a kind of "bourgeois"):

petit bourgeois (a member of the lower middle class)

Holonyms ("bourgeois" is a member of...):

bourgeoisie; middle class (the social class between the lower and upper classes)

• BOURGEOIS (adjective)

Sense 1

Meaning:

(according to Marxist thought) being of the property-owning class and exploitive of the working class

Similar:

capitalist; capitalistic (favoring or practicing capitalism)

Sense 2

Meaning:

Conforming to the standards and conventions of the middle class

Synonyms:

bourgeois; conservative; materialistic

Context example:

a bourgeois mentality

Similar:

middle-class (occupying a socioeconomic position intermediate between those of the lower classes and the wealthy)

Sense 3

Meaning:

Belonging to the middle class

Similar:

middle-class (occupying a socioeconomic position intermediate between those of the lower classes and the wealthy)

 Context examples 

Vulgarity—a hearty vulgarity, I'll admit—is the basis of bourgeois refinement and culture.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

Is he speaking to the Prince of England, or is it to the bourgeois provost of some half-captured town!

(The White Company, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Realism is imperative to my nature, and the bourgeois spirit hates realism.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The real bourgeois Ruth, with all the bourgeois failings and with the hopeless cramp of the bourgeois psychology in her mind, he had never loved.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

She had redeemed herself for all that she had lacked, rising up at last, true woman, superior to the iron rule of bourgeois convention.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

The South Seas charmed him no more than did bourgeois civilization.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

And yet, much as she had liked him she had liked the bourgeois standard of valuation more.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

That was the way bourgeois society valued a man, and who was he to expect it otherwise?

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

"I'm not interested in book philosophy. But you'll find these fellows intelligences and not bourgeois swine. But watch out, they'll talk an arm off of you on any subject under the sun."

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

There are such women, and they will love you just as readily as any pusillanimous product of bourgeois sheltered life.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)