Green-collar
adj ·Rare ·Advanced level
Definitions
- 1 Of or pertaining to employment in the environment or environmentalism industries.
"1976, Patrick Heffernan, “Jobs for the Environment — The Coming Green Collar Revolution”, in Jobs and Prices in the West Coast Region: Hearing before the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, Ninety-Fourth Congress, Second Session, U.S. Government Printing Office, page 134,"
- 2 Of or pertaining to rural, agricultural employment; often contrasted with urban blue-collar employment.
"1983, U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Forestry, Water Resources, and Environment, Cultivation of Marihuana in National Forests: Hearing Before the Subcommittee on Forestry, Water Resources, and Environment, […], U.S. Government Printing Office, page 32, American [marihuana] growers, who have more recently become known as America's "green-collar" workers because of the bright green color of their product, […]"
Example
More examples"1976, Patrick Heffernan, “Jobs for the Environment — The Coming Green Collar Revolution”, in Jobs and Prices in the West Coast Region: Hearing before the Joint Economic Committee, Congress of the United States, Ninety-Fourth Congress, Second Session, U.S. Government Printing Office, page 134,"
Etymology
By analogy with other compounds in -collar, especially white-collar and blue-collar, and taking green to represent the environment, environmentalism, and so on.
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.