blue-collar

[bloo-kol-er]

adjective

1. of or relating to wage-earning workers who wear work clothes or other specialized clothing on the job, as mechanics, longshoremen, and miners.

noun

1. a blue-collar worker.

blue-collar

adjective

1. of, relating to, or designating manual industrial workers Compare white-collar pink-collar

   a blue-collar union

blue-collar

1. A descriptive term widely used for manual laborers, as opposed to white-collar for office workers.

The term is often associated with conservative values.

Word History and Origins

Origin of blue-collar¹

First recorded in 1945–50

Example Sentences

Space X and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin have built large test facilities in Brownsville and Van Horn, Texas, bringing a blue-collar bonanza to traditionally poor regions.

From Los Angeles Times

Such skepticism is the bitter fruit of a generation of Democratic rule in Sacramento, at a time when blue-collar Latinos are finding it harder to achieve the good life.

From Los Angeles Times

The forces of real estate and the local police department have invested heavily in transforming this blue-collar fishing hamlet into a tony beach resort.

From Los Angeles Times

By the mid-aughts, efforts to draw in more blue-collar visitors had begun to bear fruit, and tax records show more than a million people were coming each year.

From Los Angeles Times

The coach handed out metal lunch pails and blue-collar work shirts customized with embroidered name tags to symbolize the team’s hard-working mentality.

From Los Angeles Times

Related Words

• apprentice 
• blue-collar worker www.thesaurus.com