bourgeois
part of speech
adjective (bourgeois); noun (a bourgeois, the bourgeoisie)
meaning for a pupil
1) Belonging to the middle class, people who have comfortable jobs, homes and money. tree →
2) (informal, often unkind) Too interested in owning things, being respectable and following ordinary middle-class tastes. tree →
3) In history (especially Karl Marx's ideas), the bourgeoisie are the people who own factories and businesses. tree →
sense in the lessons
In history lessons it appears in the French Revolution and in ideas about social class. In everyday adult talk it can be a mocking word for things seen as posh or fussy, often said jokingly («a bit bourgeois, isn't it?»). It tells the reader about class and lifestyle.
examples
- The bourgeois family lived in a big house in Paris. tree →
- In the story, the bourgeois merchant cared only about money. tree →
- Dad joked that eating olives was very bourgeois. tree →
- The bourgeoisie gained power after the French Revolution. tree →
- Karl Marx wrote about workers and the bourgeoisie. tree →
- She said the fancy coffee shop was too bourgeois for her. tree →
note
A French word. Said «BOOR-zhwah» (the s is silent). Spelling trap: b-o-u-r-g-e-o-i-s. The group noun is «the bourgeoisie» (boor-zhwah-ZEE). Can sound like an insult, so use it carefully.
Trees and pragmatics
Every meaning and example of «bourgeois» parsed by Mova, each sentence with its dependency tree and frames.