gray-collar

Definition

Of or pertaining to working-class professions that do not involve significant manual labor, such as skilled technical professions, combining elements of blue-collar and white-collar.

Etymology

From gray and collar by extension of white-collar and blue-collar, perhaps with gray being seen as intermediate between white and blue.

Example Sentences

• "But if you look at the employment trends in the country, you find that the white-collar (and gray-collar) activities have become increasingly important..."
• "1964, National Ice Association: Forty-Seventh Annual Convention, Democratic Party Convention, OK State Fed of Labor Your present plan is rated, not for the so-called blue collar people, it’s rated for white-collar and that thin gray line, the gray-collar worker. In many small businesses you don’t know who is blue-collar and who is white-collar, the boss often doing all kinds of work around the firm."
• "1971, Richard Patrick Coleman, Social Status in the City, Jossey-Bass, page 68, At the lower-middle level, the typical Negro male was a gray-collar worker in one of the civil services, worked for the railroads as a Pullman porter or dining car waiter, or owned a small business."