bour·geois
ˈbu̇rzh-ˌwä 
also ˈbu̇zh-,
or ˈbüzh-,
or
bu̇rzh-ˈwä
1
: of, relating to, or characteristic of the social middle class
2
: marked by a concern for material interests and respectability and a tendency toward mediocrity
3
: dominated by commercial and industrial interests : capitalistic
bour·geois
ˈbu̇rzh-ˌwä
also ˈbu̇zh-,
or ˈbüzh-,
or
bu̇rzh-ˈwä
plural bourgeois
ˈbu̇rzh-ˌwä(z),
also ˈbu̇zh-,
or ˈbüzh-,
or
bu̇rzh-ˈwä(z)
1
a
: a middle-class person
b
: burgher
2
: a person with social behavior and political views held to be influenced by private-property interest : capitalist
3
plural
: bourgeoisie
Examples of bourgeois in a Sentence
Adjective
Indignation about the powers that be and the bourgeois fools who did their bidding—that was all you needed … You were an intellectual.
—
Tom Wolfe, Harper's, June 2000
Even before the 19th century was over, successive waves of collection mania had rolled across Europe and America, submerging country homes and bourgeois town houses in ferns and faux-Grecian ruins …
—Liesl Schillinger, New York Times Book Review, 7 Feb. 1999
Or is Sartre's existentialism to be understood as only a way station in his transit from a bourgeois intellectual to a Marxist ideologue?
—Walker Percy, "The State of the Novel," 1977,
in Signposts in a Strange Land, 1991
… the United States … was the bourgeois nation par excellence, in which, it might be said, the values of trade were transmogrified into ideals of freedom.
—Robert Penn Warren, Democracy and Poetry, 1975
Noun
For many, Nietzsche has always been a bugaboo, though some regard him as an heroic destroyer of idols, the invigorating voice of skepticism, and a revealer of those embarrassing actualities that the pieties and protestations of the bourgeois have customarily concealed.
—William H. Gass, Harper's, August 2005
With exceptions like Rousseau, the philosophes were elitists. They enlightened through noblesse oblige in company with noblemen, and often with a patronizing attitude toward the bourgeois as well as the common people.
—Robert Darnton, The Kiss of Lamourette, 1990
Tom Wolfe, Harper's, June 2000
Even before the 19th century was over, successive waves of collection mania had rolled across Europe and America, submerging country homes and bourgeois town houses in ferns and faux-Grecian ruins …
—Liesl Schillinger, New York Times Book Review, 7 Feb. 1999
Or is Sartre's existentialism to be understood as only a way station in his transit from a bourgeois intellectual to a Marxist ideologue?
—Walker Percy, "The State of the Novel," 1977,
in Signposts in a Strange Land, 1991
… the United States … was the bourgeois nation par excellence, in which, it might be said, the values of trade were transmogrified into ideals of freedom.
—Robert Penn Warren, Democracy and Poetry, 1975
Noun
For many, Nietzsche has always been a bugaboo, though some regard him as an heroic destroyer of idols, the invigorating voice of skepticism, and a revealer of those embarrassing actualities that the pieties and protestations of the bourgeois have customarily concealed.
—William H. Gass, Harper's, August 2005
With exceptions like Rousseau, the philosophes were elitists. They enlightened through noblesse oblige in company with noblemen, and often with a patronizing attitude toward the bourgeois as well as the common people.
—Robert Darnton, The Kiss of Lamourette, 1990
Recent Examples on the Web
George Packer, The Atlantic, 5 Nov. 2024
Jude Law, Vanessa Kirby, Ana de Armas Film festivals: Toronto
Release date: TBA
Awards potential: The film is described as a survivalist thriller among a set of bourgeois European expats in the Galapagos in the 1920s.
—Joe Reid, Vulture, 10 Sep. 2024
Reuters, CNN, 2 Oct. 2024
With increasing agitation, Estela relates the family’s dark dramas and her own mounting feelings of detachment, creating an outsider’s portrait of bourgeois unravelling, deftly entwined with reflections on class and oppression.
—The New Yorker, 7 Oct. 2024
See all Example Sentences for bourgeois 
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Adjective
Not toward Settembrini’s international republic of letters, and not back toward his simple bourgeois life down in the flatlands.
—George Packer, The Atlantic, 5 Nov. 2024
Jude Law, Vanessa Kirby, Ana de Armas Film festivals: Toronto
Release date: TBA
Awards potential: The film is described as a survivalist thriller among a set of bourgeois European expats in the Galapagos in the 1920s.
—Joe Reid, Vulture, 10 Sep. 2024
Noun
At Celine, Slimane sought to update the brand’s French bourgeois aesthetic for a younger audience, with ad campaigns featuring model Kaia Gerber in cropped tops and faded jeans, accessorised with a baseball cap and small, leather purse.
—Reuters, CNN, 2 Oct. 2024
With increasing agitation, Estela relates the family’s dark dramas and her own mounting feelings of detachment, creating an outsider’s portrait of bourgeois unravelling, deftly entwined with reflections on class and oppression.
—The New Yorker, 7 Oct. 2024
See all Example Sentences for bourgeois
Dictionary Entries Near bourgeois
Cite this Entry
“Bourgeois.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bourgeois. Accessed 1 Dec. 2024.
Copy CitationKids Definition
bourgeois
1 of 2 adjective
bour·geois
ˈbu̇(ə)rzh-ˌwä
bu̇rzh-ˈwä
1
: of or relating to townspeople or members of the middle class
2
: marked by a concern for comfort, wealth, and what is respectable
bourgeois
2 of 2 noun
plural bourgeois
-ˌwä(z),
-ˈwä(z)
: a person of the middle class of society
Etymology
Noun
from early French bourgeois "a resident of a town," from earlier burgeis (same meaning), from burc "town," from Latin burgus "fortified place" — related to burgess
Biographical Definition
Bourgeois 1 of 2
biographical name (1)
Bour·geois
bu̇rzh-ˈwä
ˈbu̇rzh-ˌwä
Léon-Victor-Auguste 1851–1925 French statesman
Bourgeois
2 of 2biographical name (2)
Louise 1911–2010 American (French-born) sculptor
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