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Apr 6, 2017
This week’s theme
Words with irregular plurals

This week’s words
chrysalis
imago
tour de force
bourgeois
oxymoron

Les Bourgeois de Calais by Rodin
Les Bourgeois de Calais by Rodin

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A.Word.A.Day
with Anu Garg

bourgeois

PRONUNCIATION:
(boor-ZHWAH, BOOR-zhwah)
plural bourgeois (boor-ZHWAH, BOOR-zhwah)

MEANING:
noun:
1. A member of the middle class.
2. One who exhibits behavior in conformity to the conventions of the middle class.
3. In Marxist theory, a member of the capitalist class.

adjective:
1. Belonging to the middle class.
2. Marked by a concern for respectability and material interests.
3. Mediocre or unimaginative: lacking artistic refinement.

ETYMOLOGY:
From French bourgeois, from Latin burgus (fortress, fortified town), from West Germanic burg. Ultimately from the Indo-European root bhergh- (high) which is also the source of iceberg, belfry, borough, burg, burglar, bourgeois, fortify, and force. Earliest documented use: 1564.

USAGE:
“By all means get stuck into the people who stall at bourgeois and never move past the obsession with acquisition and security.”
Lisa Pryor; Relax; The Sydney Morning Herald (Australia); Dec 29, 2007.

See more usage examples of bourgeois in Vocabulary.com’s dictionary.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
We take our colors, chameleon-like, from each other. -Nicolas de Chamfort, writer (6 Apr 1741-1794)

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