bürgerlich

Bürgerlich is a German adjective with several related meanings stemming from the word Bürger (citizen, townsman). Its primary senses are: relating to citizens or civil society (civil, civic) and relating to the bourgeoisie (the middle class). In legal language it appears in phrases such as Bürgerliches Recht, the private law governing relations between individuals, and the associated Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (Civil Code).

In social and cultural discourse, bürgerlich denotes attributes, institutions, and values associated with the urban middle class, such as respectability, property ownership, family life, and conventional manners. It is used to describe cultural forms linked to this milieu, for example bürgerliche Kunst (bourgeois or middle-class art) or bürgerliches Trauerspiel (bourgeois tragedy), a genre focusing on middle-class concerns and domestic life rather than aristocratic heroism.

Historically, the term gained prominence with the rise of a market-oriented, property-owning middle class in the 18th and 19th centuries. It helped shape ideas about social order, morality, and public life, contrasting with nobility, peasantry, and later socialist critiques. The concept of Bürgerlichkeit (the state or culture of being bourgeois) has been central in debates about modernity, urbanization, and the development of civil society.

In contemporary usage, bürgerlich can describe mainstream, centrist, or liberal-conservative political tendencies, especially when contrasted with left-wing or radical movements. The word is also used more generally to denote everyday, non-aristocratic, private life as opposed to courtly or rural life.