1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bourgeois

BOURGEOIS, a French word, properly meaning a freeman of a bourg or borough in France; later the term came to have the wider significance of the whole class lying between the ouvriers or workmen and the nobility, and is now used generally of the trading middle-class of any country. In printing, the word (pronounced burjoice′) is used of a type coming in size between longprimer and brevier; the derivation is supposed to be from the name of a French printer, otherwise unknown.