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say it: UHN-dur-klas
underclass is a noun and adjective meaning "the social class lowest in the social hierarchy". It is pronounced /ˈʌndɚˌklæs/ — UHN-dur-klas. It carries 2 recorded senses.
the social class lowest in the social hierarchy
belonging to the lowest and least privileged social stratum
“underclass mothers and children”
Forms marked · are formed by the regular rule rather than recorded in the source data. English keeps a few hundred irregulars and the rest follow the pattern, so the rule is right far more often than not — but it is a rule, and the mark says so.
Definitions, synonyms and semantic relations for underclass come from Princeton University’s WordNet. The pronunciation comes from the CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. Commonness is measured against a corpus of everyday English. Full sources and licences.