View synonyms for

the masses

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Idioms and Phrases

The body of common people, or people of low socioeconomic status, as in TV sitcoms are designed to appeal to the masses . This idiom is nearly always used in a snobbish context that puts down the taste, intelligence, or some other quality of the majority of people. W.S. Gilbert satirized this view in the peers' march in Iolanthe (1882), in which the lower-middle class and the masses are ordered to bow down before the peers. Prime Minister William Gladstone took a different view (Speech, 1886): “All the world over, I will back the masses against the [upper] classes.” [First half of 1800s]

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Example Sentences

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In the "Black Panther" franchise, Mr. Coogler leaned on historical memory to display the innovation, beauty, majesty, and pageantry of African people, countering stereotypes etched in the minds of the masses from those Sally Struthers "Save the Children" commercials.

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Opposition MPs stormed out and word instantly reached the masses outside.

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Similarly, in Ryan Coogler’s new movie “Sinners” — which is set in the Mississippi Delta back in 1932 — it was the people society ignored the most who first gave warning to the masses.

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However, I am also fascinated with which character a director chooses to introduce the truth to the masses — and what it takes to get people to believe them.

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And as with the throughline in all of the vampire movies I love, it matters who is telling the truth to the masses.

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Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

“The Marseillaise”The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation

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