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Depending on your point of view, we can take some charactristics as negative or positive e.g. determined -> stubborn, innocent -> naive.

My friends and I are looking for a disapproving word being used by people from low-class in society (probably a slang word) to describe a person who is classy.

For example, you go shopping with your friend and your friend suggests a design shirt and you say humorously,

I'm not (a) [classy] (person).

(Needless to say, classy is a positive word and I want a negative equivalent mostly used by people who lead a hard life)

Or someone asks a poor or a homeless guy if he uses dental floss. He answers,

We're not [classy].

In my native language we use a word which almost means "an obssessive princess" by which we mean you're rich and really careful about your clothes or unimportant things.

Is there any adjective, noun, or even a verb phrase to describe such a person?

(Informal/slang words are really appreciated since we use this word informally in our language.)

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    I don't think it's pretentious to brush one's teeth and floss (we call it "dental hygiene") but you've used the word you're looking for: pretentious.
    – TimR
    Commented Apr 10, 2016 at 18:12
  • I know, I said it's used by low-class people who are obssessed with hard aspects of their lives so they see these thing as not really important things so they use 'classy' in a negative way. Do you recommend I should include this in my question more directly? And still 'pretentious' works here?
    – Yuri
    Commented Apr 10, 2016 at 18:16
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    If we disregard the dental hygiene part and being upset because a car has splashed you with dirty water (people from any social background are entitled to this in the 21st century) I would go with the word snob for a negative connotation.
    – Lucky
    Commented Apr 10, 2016 at 18:32
  • I'm voting to close this question as off-topic because it is a list question and answers will likely be primarily opinion-based.
    – user3169
    Commented Apr 10, 2016 at 19:42
  • What word is that? Because of all the descriptions so far, a summarized version might help to keep this focused.
    – user3169
    Commented Apr 10, 2016 at 19:45

3 Answers 3

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In the UK, posh is used primarily by working class people. It is used by aspirational ones in a positive way, "we got dressed up all posh, like", but it can also have a derogatory meaning. If you offered a napkin to a proud-to-be-working-class man, he might reply

Naa, I'm not posh, mate.

ladida is a mild expression of disapproval of somebody's affectations.

poncy is a working class way of saying "pretentious", and it's definitely derogatory. This might be used about the shirt:

You won't catch me wearing a poncy shirt like that!

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  • Great, that's the meaning I'm looking for. These are very helpful words. Do you happen to know American equivalents, too?
    – Yuri
    Commented Apr 10, 2016 at 22:21
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    I'm BrE, so i can't report from personal experience. Highfalutin comes to mind: it's definitely AmE in origin.
    – JavaLatte
    Commented Apr 11, 2016 at 5:02
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    @Adam, thanks for confirming that. Derogatory terms for 'people not like us' tend to be quite local, as they need to identify specific traits in those people. At the opposite end of the scale, "trailer trash" would not work in the UK because we don't have trailer parks, and I'm guessing that CHAV (Council House and Violent) wouldn't work in the US because you don't have council houses.
    – JavaLatte
    Commented Apr 11, 2016 at 17:30
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    What you call council houses we call projects. There is definitely a stigma associated with being from the projects, but I am not aware of a word similar to Chav. Maybe the incredible offensive ghetto trash?
    – Adam
    Commented Apr 11, 2016 at 17:40
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    I don't think the folk etymology of chav coming from an acronym is widely-believed, but the word itself is very illustrative of 1990s Britain, and we have lots of similar ones, all derogatory words for working-class people, many of them very regional: ned, schemie, scally etc. They're generally rude (although sometimes proudly used for self-labelling); but they lack the racist subtext that I think you get from ghetto.
    – tea-and-cake
    Commented Aug 17, 2021 at 14:29
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I think the term hoity-toity might work for you here:

No, thanks; I'm no hoity-toity person with fancy designer clothes.

According to the Wordnik page, this reduplicative1 term can be defined as:

hoity-toity (adj.) Pretentiously self-important; pompous, self-important and snobbish.

A 2011 television show review used the term this way:

In the case of Roddy, it's discovered that he's an outcast.
He's a troubled kid at a fancy, hoity-toity high school.

I've usually heard this term use pejoratively, which is what you're after, but it's not considered vulgar or profane. I think it would work well in light-hearted contexts.

1For more on reduplication, see this ELL answer.

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Lardy-dardy meaning excessively elegant,pretentious can be used in some context.Arty-farty is pretentious but it is derogatory.

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