hoi polloi
The ordinary folk
Hoi polloi means the common people, the masses—often used dismissively by those who consider themselves above the crowd: The VIP section keeps out the hoi polloi.
The phrase is Greek for "the many," so purists object to "the hoi polloi" as redundant, though that's how English speakers naturally say it.
- commonersOrdinary citizens, untitled
- common folkOrdinary members of society
- plebeiansRoman lower classes
- crowdLarge public gathering
- rabbleDisorderly, noisy crowd
throng · groundlings · proletariat · great unwashed · unwashed masses · riffraff · lower orders · mass · demos · commonality · working class · rank and file · public · ordinary people · everyday people · the masses · man on the street · Joe Sixpack
- populacethe masses, common folk, ordinary people, general public, everyman
- class labelsaristocrat, beggar, bourgeois, commoner, elite
- commonerscommoner, commoners, peasant, peasants, common people
- massmass, masses, bulk, body mass, atomic mass
- social classupper class, middle class, lower class, working class, social class
- underclasspoor, pauper, peasant, homeless, serf
hoi polloiaristocracy
Rule by hereditary elite
upper class · nobility · patricians · high society · the one percent
hoi polloicognoscenti
Knowledgeable insiders of a field
intelligentsia · literati · glitterati · tastemakers · sophisticates
hoi polloithe few
Small select group
movers and shakers · the powers that be · plutocracy · power brokers · kingmakers