precariat
Word Rarity
Very rare
Frequency: Zipf frequency 1.45 in modern English
13
Scrabble Score
9
Letters
3
Syllables
7
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
People suffering from precarity, especially as a social class; people living a precarious existence, without security or predictability, especially job security.
Countable; Uncountable
Example Sentences
- "The global precariat is not yet a class in the Marxian sense, being internally divided and only united in fears and insecurities. But it is a class in the making, approaching a consciousness of common vulnerability."
- "Professor [Stephanie] Luce characterized the protesters who had problems finding full-time work as part of an emerging demographic that some commentators call the “precariat” — educated people forced into unsteady or insecure jobs because little else is available."
- "The American Precariat seems more hunkered down, insecure, risk averse, relying on friends and family but without faith in American possibilities. This fatalism is historically uncharacteristic of America."
- "My first encounter with one group of the new nomads came in 2013, at the Desert Rose RV park in Fernley, Nevada. It was populated by members of the “precariat”: temporary laborers doing short-term jobs in exchange for low wages."
- "Second, there is the precariat. These are the young and educated voters caught in the gig economy, who see no career security ahead."
Etymology
Blend of precarious + proletariat, emerging from the socio-economic theories of French sociologist Pierre Bourdieu and popularized by economist Guy Standing in his book The Precariat (2011).