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
Wade Davis, Rolling Stone, 6 Apr. 2025
The concepts minted in the early 1960s by the late French literary critic and philosopher René Girard explain the pathologies of the smartphone age as elegantly as Freud’s explained bourgeois neuroses at the turn of the last century.
—Matthew Gasda, airmail.news, 27 July 2024
Elizabeth Brownfield, Forbes.com, 27 Mar. 2025
The chief irony is this: the same bourgeois virtues that have helped Democrats to dominate the technology sector and the education system, and to make new inroads into the security state, have become liabilities in mass political combat.
—Matthew Karp, Harper's Magazine, 2 Oct. 2024
See All Example Sentences for bourgeois
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Adjective
Every possible ill, every source of embarrassment to their bourgeois sensibilities, was blamed on the plant.
—Wade Davis, Rolling Stone, 6 Apr. 2025
The concepts minted in the early 1960s by the late French literary critic and philosopher René Girard explain the pathologies of the smartphone age as elegantly as Freud’s explained bourgeois neuroses at the turn of the last century.
—Matthew Gasda, airmail.news, 27 July 2024
Noun
Fauna, which is filled with beautiful tilework and flooded with daytime light, is meant to evoke the style and casual warmth of a Catalan bourgeois house.
—Elizabeth Brownfield, Forbes.com, 27 Mar. 2025
The chief irony is this: the same bourgeois virtues that have helped Democrats to dominate the technology sector and the education system, and to make new inroads into the security state, have become liabilities in mass political combat.
—Matthew Karp, Harper's Magazine, 2 Oct. 2024
See All Example Sentences for bourgeois
Cite this Entry
“Bourgeois.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bourgeois. Accessed 19 Apr. 2025.
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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