ETYM French.
The French middle class, particularly such as are concerned in, or dependent on, trade.
(French) The middle classes. The French word originally meant “the freemen of a borough”. It came to mean the whole class above the workers and peasants, and below the nobility. “Bourgeoisie” (and “bourgeois”) has also acquired a contemptuous sense, implying commonplace, philistine respectability. By socialists it is applied to the whole propertied class, as distinct from the proletariat.