- in Marxist theory, the class made up of workers, especially industrial wage earners, who do not possess capital or property and must sell their labor to those who do in order to survive: The call of the proletariat is to overthrow the capitalist mode of production and finally abolish the whole class structure.A dictatorship of the proletariat is the first stage of the revolution.
- the class made up of wage earners, especially unskilled or semiskilled workers who earn their living by manual labor, often dependent on daily or casual employment and typically having low levels of education and disposable income; the working class.
- the lowest or poorest class of people, possessing no property, especially in ancient Rome.
- all wage-earners collectively
- the lower or working class
- (in Marxist theory) the class of wage-earners, esp industrial workers, in a capitalist society, whose only possession of significant material value is their labour
- (in ancient Rome) the lowest class of citizens, who had no property
