https://shorturl.im/ayl51 bourgeois is the adjective, bourgeoisie is the noun. Actually, I don’t know that yuppie is not a good synonym. While is does refer to the middle class, it does have the sense of capitalistic, upper middle class, rather than the petit bourgeoisie of what we would consider common, middle class. Think of it this way (in Marxist terms): The Proletariat is the working class, people who sell their labor. The Petite bourgeoisie are the people who may employ the labor of others, but are also working themselves. They may be shopkeepers or professionals. They may have resources, but do not profit exclusively from the labor of others. The Bourgeoisie are those who own the land, the factories, the resources, the materials, and who employ the proletariat. However, they are disconnected from the production process while gaining from the output of the proletariat. How this translates from 19th century economic sociology to modern times varies. Usually petite refers to lower and upper middle class, and Bourgeois to the more elite upper middle class, and here it tends to have the same derision of “yuppie”– someone who consumes, who is materialistic, who is ‘keeping up with the Joneses’. In modern parlance, the word “booji,” such as Fergie uses in the song Glamorous, is a related idea....
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