Definition of "work-people" []

• People engaged in work or labor, particularly in manual labor. (noun)

The Century Dictionary (Public Domain)

• "The work-people humbled themselves before the offended dignitary, and spake him soft and fair; and at length, upon Mr. Butler recalling to his mind that it was the ordination-day, and that the workmen were probably thinking of going to church,"
• "The suspicious old man learned a good deal over nips of brandy with the work-people, and something more by questioning"
• "The whole effect upon the mind of a cool observer was of a covey of unsubstantial jabbering minds drifting over a series of irrational economic cataclysms, prices and employment tumbled about like towers in an earthquake, and amidst the shifting masses were the common work-people going on with their lives as well as they could, suffering, perplexed, unorganized, and for anything but violent, fruitless protests, impotent."