People who are considered disreputable, criminal, or morally questionable; individuals of low social status.
Compound: low (Old English 'lah' meaning not high) + life (Old English 'lif'). Appearing as 'lowlife' in early 20th-century American slang, it became a fixed compound.
The word 'lowlife' is a perfect example of how social class judgments get baked into language—the word literally means 'low-life' as if some lives were positioned higher or lower, which reflects historical class prejudices.
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