lumpen \LUHM-puhn; LUM-puhn\, adjective:
1. Of or relating to dispossessed and displaced individuals,
especially those who have lost social status.
2. Common; vulgar.
noun; plural lumpen, also lumpens:
A member the underclass, especially the lowest social stratum.
...an academic sweatshop where underpaid lumpen intellectuals slave for a pittance.
--Ashlea Ebeling, "I got my degree through e-mail,"
Forbes, June 16, 1997
If traditionally cricket has been the game of the elite,
and football strictly for the lumpen masses, all that's
changed now.
--Louisa Buck, "Fever pitch," ArtForum, October 1996
Though I appreciate that Mavericks owner Mark Cuban is a
self-made man, having made his billions by selling the
voltage of his brainpower to behemoths such as CompuServe
and Yahoo!, and though I also appreciate that he has
maintained his ability to mingle with the lumpen, he still
is a very, very rich man.
--Sean Deveney, "Mavs make their move, but at what cost?"
Sporting News, March 4, 2002
The New Russians are depicted as lumpens who have left the
countryside and never fully adjusted to city life.
--Emil Draitser, "The new Russians' jokelore: Genesis and
sociological interpretations," [4]Demokratizatsiya, Summer
2001
Lumpen is from German Lumpenproletariat, "degraded stratum of
the proletariat," from Lump, "a contemptible person" (from
Lumpen, "rags") + Proletariat, "proletariat," from French.