Not cleaned with water; dirty or unclean, especially used to describe unkempt people or rough, common folks.
Simple combination of the prefix 'un-' (not) and the past participle 'washed.' The term became particularly loaded in class commentary, especially in phrases like 'the great unwashed' to refer dismissively to poor or working-class people.
The phrase 'the great unwashed' reveals how Victorian England used cleanliness as a class marker—literally equating poverty with literal dirtiness. It's a reminder that language often encodes social prejudices, making insults seem natural rather than constructed.
Historically used to demean lower-class and working women, particularly in the phrase 'great unwashed' as a classist epithet implying poor women lacked hygiene or virtue.
Describe specific conditions rather than using as a class or character marker. If describing hygiene literally, specify context.
["unclean (literal)","working-class","poor"]
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