Used as a noun (usually "the working class") or as an adjective ("a working-class family"), this names the part of society whose people earn money by doing physical work with their hands or bodies, and who usually do not have much money, property, or power. Think of factory workers, drivers, cleaners, builders, shop staff. The picture behind the word is an old British one: society split into the working class at the bottom, the middle class in the middle (office jobs, teachers, doctors), and the upper class at the top (old rich families). When British people say it, they often mean much more than money — they mean the way you speak, the school you went to, the food you eat, the friends your parents had. A rich footballer from a poor town may still call himself working-class, and nobody thinks that is strange. Americans use the word too, but they mean it more simply: people who work hard for not much pay. Many Americans who would count as working-class prefer to say "middle class" about themselves, because "working class" can sound like a sad word there. In Britain it is often said with pride: "proud working-class roots." But be careful — in the mouth of a snob, "very working-class" can be an insult about someone's taste. The word is also going soft at the edges. The old picture assumed factories and coal mines; today a lot of low-paid work is in shops, call centres, and delivery, and writers argue about whether those people are working-class or something new. Politicians love the phrase "ordinary working people" because it sounds warm and avoids the argument. Note that "working-class" does not simply mean "a person who works" — a lawyer works fifty hours a week and is not working-class.