semiproletariat
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 0.00 in modern English
19
Scrabble Score
15
Letters
4
Syllables
10
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
The class of marginalized workers who lack regular employment, such as working peasants, pedlars, small handicrafts makers, and the underemployed.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "To obtain such a cost differential they must either be able to hold back the proletariat's demands for real wage increases, using segments of the semiproletariat as 'strike breakers', or if they transfer a portion of the advantage to the proletariat they must obtain the asisistance of this group to hold the semiproletariat firmly in check - indeed to expropriate some or all of its land resources."
- "This is because the rural semiproletariat are not so stubborn in clinging to the system of private ownership of the means of production [vested] is small[-scale] peasant holdings, and they are people who will accept socialist transformation more easily."
- "The semiproletariat consisted of those who did manual labor for one or more masters and who surrendered their surplus product either as rent or as surplus value to their employers."
- "In this contradictory process, the class balances within the nationalist alliance would also begin to shift against the semiproletariat."
Etymology
From semi- + proletariat.