Bourgeoisie: In Molière's Le Bourgeois… | etymologist.ai
bourgeoisie
/ˌbʊəʒ.wɑːˈziː/·noun·c. 1707 in English; c. 1564 in French (attested by Du Cange in the Glossarium)·Established
Origin
Bourgeoisie descends from PIE *bʰerǵʰ- (high, elevated), through Proto-Germanic *burgz (hill fort) and Frankish *burg into Old French bourg (fortified town). A bourgeoiswas simply a free citizen of such a town — neither noble nor serf — and the collective suffix -ie formed bourgeoisie: the town-dwelling class. Marx and Engels transformed it into the defining term of modern class conflict, while artists from Molière to Flaubert made it a synonym for philistine convention.
Definition
The social class of town-dwellers, merchants, and property owners occupying the middle stratum between the aristocracy and the proletariat; in Marxist theory, the capitalist class who own the means of production and exploit the labour of the working class.
The Full Story
French18th century (in English); 16th century (in French)well-attested
From French 'bourgeoisie' (the burgher class collectively), derived from 'bourgeois' (town-dweller, citizen of a bourg), from Old French 'burgeis, borjois' (citizen of a fortified town), from 'borc, bourg' (fortified town, market town), from Frankish *burg (fortified place, stronghold), from Proto-Germanic *burgz (hill fort, fortified elevation), ultimately from PIE *bʰerǵʰ- (high, elevated). The suffix -ie/-oisie marks a collective noun denoting the class as a whole. The OED records the earliest English
Did you know?
In Molière's Le Bourgeois gentilhomme (1670), the merchant Monsieur Jourdain is astonished to learn he has been 'speaking prose all his life' — a scene that satirises the bourgeois hunger for aristocratic refinement. The comedy's enduringfamehelped cement 'bourgeois' as a byword for pretentious mediocrity, long before Marx weaponised it as a term of class warfare.