A low-life (or lowlife) is a term for a person who is considered morally unacceptable by their

community A community is a social unit (a group of living things) with commonality such as place, norms, religion, values, customs, or identity. Communities may share a sense of place situated in a given geographical area (e.g. a country, village, tow ...

. Examples of people society often labels low-lives include aggressive panhandlers,

bullies A bully is someone responsible for bullying, using aggression to intimidate or dominate others. Bully may also refer to: Animals * American Bully, a breed of dog * Bull Terrier or bully, a breed of dog * '' Gobiomorphus'' or bully, an Australia ...

criminals In ordinary language, a crime is an unlawful act punishable by a State (polity), state or other authority. The term ''crime'' does not, in modern criminal law, have any simple and universally accepted definition,Farmer, Lindsay: "Crime, definit ...

drug dealers The illegal drug trade or drug trafficking is a global black market dedicated to the cultivation, manufacture, distribution and sale of prohibited drugs. Most jurisdictions prohibit trade, except under license, of many types of drugs through ...

, freeloaders,

hobo A hobo is a migrant worker in the United States. Hoboes, tramps and bums are generally regarded as related, but distinct: a hobo travels and is willing to work; a tramp travels, but avoids work if possible; and a bum neither travels nor works. E ...

gangster A gangster is a criminal who is a member of a gang. Most gangs are considered to be part of organized crime. Gangsters are also called mobsters, a term derived from ''mob'' and the suffix '' -ster''. Gangs provide a level of organization and ...

s, people who make constant use of

profanities Profanity, also known as cursing, cussing, swearing, bad language, foul language, obscenities, expletives or vulgarism, is a socially offensive use of language. Accordingly, profanity is language use that is sometimes deemed impolite, ru ...

prostitutes Prostitution is the business or practice of engaging in sexual activity in exchange for payment. The definition of "sexual activity" varies, and is often defined as an activity requiring physical contact (e.g., sexual intercourse, non-penet ...

pimps Procuring or pandering is the facilitation or provision of a prostitute or other sex worker in the arrangement of a sex act with a customer. A procurer, colloquially called a pimp (if male) or a madam (if female, though the term pimp has still ...

scammers A confidence trick is an attempt to defraud a person or group after first gaining their trust. Confidence tricks exploit victims using their credulity, naïveté, compassion, vanity, confidence, irresponsibility, and greed. Researchers have def ...

sexual abuse Sexual abuse or sex abuse, also referred to as molestation, is abusive sexual behavior by one person upon another. It is often perpetrated using force or by taking advantage of another. Molestation often refers to an instance of sexual assa ...

rs and

thieves Theft is the act of taking another person's property or services without that person's permission or consent with the intent to deprive the rightful owner of it. The word ''theft'' is also used as a synonym or informal shorthand term for some ...

. Often, the term is used as an indication of disapproval of antisocial or destructive behaviors, usually bearing a connotation of contempt and derision. This usage of the word dates to 1911. The long-term origins of the ideas behind this in the Western world trace back to ancient times with the distinction of

high culture High culture is a subculture that emphasizes and encompasses the cultural objects of aesthetic value, which a society collectively esteem as exemplary art, and the intellectual works of philosophy, history, art, and literature that a society cons ...

associated with

aristocracy Aristocracy (, ) is a form of government that places strength in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocracy (class), aristocrats. The term derives from the el, αριστοκρατία (), meaning 'rule of the best'. At t ...

at the top of the social hierarchy who were regarded in aristocrat-dominated society as compared with low culture associated with

commoners A commoner, also known as the ''common man'', ''commoners'', the ''common people'' or the ''masses'', was in earlier use an ordinary person in a community or nation who did not have any significant social status, especially a member of neither ...

at the bottom of the social hierarchy that included many impoverished people among them. In common usage, the term can also be used for people associated with adhering to

low culture In sociology, the term Low culture identifies the forms of popular culture that have mass appeal, which is in contrast to High culture, which has a limited appeal to a smaller proportion of the populace. Culture theory proposes that both high ...

, or used to describe a crass, overly casual person who exhibit a lack of grace and refinement. In this sense, individuals do not necessarily need to be criminally destructive or hold ethically questionable views to qualify for the term. Similar terms used for the same type of person include the Australian/New Zealand term ''feral''.

Reputation

Upwardly mobile members of an ethnic group, committed to schooling, education and employment prospects, will often reject low-lives who instead opt (willingly or unwillingly) for street or gang life.

Attraction

The lure of the low-life for those in established social strata has been a perennial feature of western history: it can be traced from the

Nero Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus ( ; born Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus; 15 December AD 37 – 9 June AD 68), was the fifth Roman emperor and final emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, reigning from AD 54 un ...

nian aristocrat described by

Juvenal Decimus Junius Juvenalis (), known in English as Juvenal ( ), was a Roman poet active in the late first and early second century CE. He is the author of the collection of satirical poems known as the ''Satires''. The details of Juvenal's life ...

as only at home in stables and taverns–“you'll find him near a gangster, cheek by jowl, mingling with

lascar A lascar was a sailor or militiaman from the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, the Arab world, British Somaliland, or other land east of the Cape of Good Hope, who was employed on European ships from the 16th century until the middle of the 2 ...

s, thieves and convicts on the run”–through the Elizabethan interest in

cony-catching ''Coney-catching'' is Elizabethan slang for theft through trickery. It comes from the word "coney" (sometimes spelled ''conny''), meaning a rabbit raised for the table and thus tame. A coney-catcher was a thief or con man. It was a practice in me ...

, up to

William Burroughs William Seward Burroughs II (; February 5, 1914 – August 2, 1997) was an American writer and visual artist, widely considered a primary figure of the Beat Generation and a major postmodern author who influenced popular cultu ...

' obsession with the

, bum, or urban outlaw, and through to the anti-heroes of

Cyberpunk Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of lowlife and high tech", featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cyber ...

. Such interest may have a sexual component, based on the subconscious equation of socially low status with lack of inhibitions, as with the Roman ladies described by

Petronius Gaius Petronius Arbiter"Gaius Petronius Arbiter"
Pejorative terms for people