middle classn.adj.

1654 W. Carlos in H. Foley Rec. Eng. Province Soc. Jesus (1877) (modernized text) I. 180 My parents were of the middle class, but reduced to the lowest condition by the war.

1745 J. Bradshaw Scheme to prevent running Irish Wools to France 4 The lower and middle Class of their People appear'd at that time, well dress'd in Ratteens and Frizes; the better, or richer Class, wore Cloths of Ten Shillings per Yard.

1756 J. Massie Calculations Taxes for Family 8 By such Assertions, People of the middle or inferior Classes, may be prevented from pursuing..the Means to make future Provision for their Families.

1766 Queen Caroline Matilda of Denmark Let. 25 Dec. in Mem. Unfortunate Queen (1776) 21 There is no such thing here as a middle class of people living in affluence and independence.

1792 T. Paine Rights of Man: Pt. Second v. 111 A poll-tax was levied... It excited, as it naturally must, universal detestation among the poor and middle classes.

1812 Examiner 31 Aug. 556/1 Such of the Middle Class of Society who have fallen upon evil days.

1831 Ld. Brougham Speeches 7 Oct. (1838) II. 617 By the people..I mean the middle classes, the wealth and intelligence of the country, the glory of the British name.

1861 J. S. Mill Represent. Govt. iii. 67 A benefit of the same kind..is produced on Englishmen of the lower middle class by their liability to be placed on juries and to serve parish offices.

c1885 M. Darwin Let. in G. Raverat Period Piece (1952) vi. 98 The upper middle class think they are acting rightly by over-protecting their daughters.

1891 G. B. Shaw Quintessence of Ibsenism 3 The English newspaper which best represents the guilty conscience of the middle class, or dominant factor in society, is the Daily Telegraph.

1920 J. Galsworthy Foundations i. 6 L[ittle] Anne. What are the middle classes? James. Anything from two 'undred a year to super-tax.

1951 H. Arendt Burden of our Time i. ii. 13 Their wealth seemed to make them part of the middle class, but they did not share in its capitalist development.

1964 T. B. Bottomore Elites & Society (1974) i. 11 The elite..is intimately connected with society through a sub-elite, a much larger group which comprises..the whole ‘new middle class’ of civil servants, managers and white collar workers, scientists and engineers, scholars and intellectuals.

1997 G. Hosking Russia (1998) iv. iii. 387 In Baku..the Armenians formed a conspicuous and relatively successful middle class, easy targets for resentful Azeris, many of whom were poverty-stricken workers in the oil fields.

1836 J. S. Mill in London Rev. Jan. 385 It is a fact strikingly illustrative of the difference between the spirit of the slave-owning aristocracies of the south, and the middle-class democracies of the north.

1842 in G. D. H. Cole & A. W. Filson Brit. Working Class Movements (1967) 390 The Corn Law party or middle class agitators desiring to cooperate with us, should be called upon to agree to the unqualified right of speech for all our Leaders at all political meetings.

1858 T. D. Acland Oxf. Associate in Arts Exam. 3 To prepare the way for a practical and truly English Middle-class Education.

1868 M. Pattison Suggestions Acad. Organisation 3 For centuries our middle-class public were slowly travelling.

1890 Spectator 18 Oct. 518/1 The tastes of the average middle-class buyer of books.

1905 Daily Chron. 13 Nov. 8/1 The average middle-class English woman..should never be tempted to wear a trained skirt out of doors.

1928 E. Garnett in J. Conrad Lett. (1956) Introd. 5 The heavy, middle class atmosphere of the National Liberal Club with its yellow encaustic tiles.

1968 Scottish Daily Mail 16 July 2/1 The tests were geared to white middle class society.

1977 A. Ayckbourn in Observer 20 Mar. 11/7 Half the country is middle-class: the other half is trying to be.

1987 D. Rowe Beyond Fear v. 186 The prejudice that middle-class people can hold about the working class.

1996 T. Parker Violence of our Lives iii. 88 He comes from what you could call a middle-class background, his father being a water engineer.

1846 Jrnl. Statist. Soc. 9 309 The police-magistrates and the police-courts..will at once gain the support of a higher public opinion..and the assistance of men of middle-class intelligence.

1871 M. Arnold Friendship's Garland 71 Why do you call Mr. Hepworth Dixon's style middle-class Macaulayese?

1888 M. Tennant Let. 29 Aug. in K. Rose Superior Person (1969) xvi. 204 Will your middle-class method break down there?

1893 E. Saltus Madam Sapphira 106 Don't talk back, it is middle-class to begin with.

1905 A. V. Dicey Lect. Law & Publ. Opinion vi. 186 Benthamism was fundamentally a middle class creed.

1912 G. B. Shaw Pygmalion ii. 138 What is middle class morality? Just an excuse for never giving me anything.

1926 F. M. Ford Man could stand Up i. iii. 49 What should keep them apart?... Middle Class Morality?

1966 Punch 13 July 78/2 The tyranny of middle-class morality must be conquered, especially in the field of the homosexuality laws.

1975 Sat. Rev. (U.S.) 8 Mar. 13/3 American society..has been a system based on middle-class values.

1999 Daily Tel. 20 Sept. 7/2 The Women's Royal Voluntary Service—a redoubt of understated middle-class philanthropy for more than 60 years.

1857 T. D. Acland Oxf. Associate in Arts Exam. (1858) 33 The Exeter Middle Class Examination.

1860 J. S. Mill Consider. Represent. Govt. (1865) 72/1 The ‘local’ or ‘middle class’ examination for the degree of Associate, so laudably and public-spiritedly established by the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge.

1986 M. Bryant London Exper. Secondary Educ. iv. 161 Fortunately a scheme for the examination of schools was sanctioned in 1850 and put into practice in 1854. These were the first of the so-called ‘Middle Class Examinations’.

1839 Brit. Mag. & Monthly Reg. 15 237/1 Another great object was to provide middle-class schools, in which the best and most useful education might be given in connexion with the established church.

1864 Reader 30 Jan. 134 Middle-class schools, in which education is pushed beyond the three ‘R's’.

1883 C. J. Wills In Land of Lion & Sun 164 Euclid, Algebra, Latin, and French, in which, unlike the smattering of a middle-class school at home, a thorough grounding is given.

1944 J. L. Brereton Case for Examinations iv. 72 The demand for middle-class schools was supplemented by a demand for secondary education for working-class boys and girls.

1986 M. Bryant London Exper. Secondary Educ. v. 247 The next stage of the history of the school founded by the Middle Class Schools Corporation therefore belongs not only to the development of technical and commercial education, but to the struggle with the ‘Dead Hand’ of charity.

1901 Critic (N.Y.) May 455/1 Lady Agnes Grove has written a paper upon ‘Mispronunciation and Middleclassdom’.

1930 Observer 14 Sept. 7 The secret of Denmark's somewhat stuffy middle-classdom.

1963 Times 2 May 18/2 Incipient middle-classdom; outward conformity.

1886 W. Morris in J. W. Mackail Life W. Morris (1899) II. 157 I met some very agreeable middle-classers there, and had much talk.

1974 Jrnl. Negro Educ. 43 491 Freedom must mean respect for the so-called militant, the middle classer, the accommodater, the intellectualizer, or the old timer because all play a part in extending the assets of Blackness.

1909 Working Men's College Jrnl. Apr. 77 Mr. Lupton..did not think the question before the House was one of aristocracy v. middle-classism.

1978 Los Angeles Times 25 Oct. iv. 18/3 Erma Bombeck, that fun-making interpreter of middle-classism, specialising in the foibles of families pursuing the so-called American dream.

1926 Glasgow Herald 21 May 8 Highly respectable, middle-classy railway clerks.