white-collar

• whitecollar, white collar

From the colour of dress shirts worn by professional and clerical workers, as opposed to the rugged denim and chambray shirts normally worn by manual workers.

• Audio (CA)

  (file)

white-collar (comparative more white-collar, superlative most white-collar)

1. Of or pertaining to office work and workers; contrasted with blue-collar.

   Synonym: (dated) black-coated

   • 1929 December, Betty Boone, “The Price of this Stardom”, in Screenland, page 22:

     This being a motion picture star is a real business. It's a job, and not always a white collar one, either.

2. Pertaining to the culture of white-collar workers, as values, politics, etc.; contrasted with blue-collar.

• → Polish: białe kołnierzyki (calque)