Level of education has effect on the use of greeting words in communication. This paper aims to describe the greeting words used by Makassar ethnic community based on their level of education and outlines the factors that influence the use of the greeting words in the society. The writers used a grounded research method with qualitative approach in descriptive type and phenomenological strategy. The population was the educated and less educated people of Makassar ethnic community. The results showed that the (...) educated people used formal and polite greeting words. Meanwhile, the less educated people used a variety of informal greeting words based on their social status. (shrink)