| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
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| lumpenproletariat |
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| SYLLABICATION: | lum·pen·pro·le·tar·i·at |
| PRONUNCIATION: |  l m p n-pr l -târ  -t, l m- |
| NOUN: | 1. The lowest, most degraded stratum of the proletariat. Used originally in Marxist theory to describe those members of the proletariat, especially criminals, vagrants, and the unemployed, who lacked class consciousness. 2. The underclass of a human population. | | ETYMOLOGY: | German : Lumpen, pl. of Lump, ragamuffin (from Middle High German lumpe, rag) + Proletariat, proletariat (from French prolétariat; see proletariat).
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| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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