Definition
The general populace, particularly the working class.
Origins
Attributed by many to Edmund Burke, the first published use of the phrase was by Edward Bulwer-Lytton in a dedicatory epistle for 1830, Paul Clifford.
In Context
- "[T]he gentlemen of the inns of court, and the gentlemen of the universities… live in abodes which were erected long before the custom of cleanliness and decency obtained among us. … Gentlemen, there can be but little doubt that your ancestors were the Great Unwashed: and in the Temple especially, it is pretty certain, that only under the greatest difficulties and restrictions the virtue which has been pronounced to be next to godliness could have been practised at all."
- "The Liberal campaign was so carefully orchestrated that McLeod was never in a position to be confronted by the great unwashed. Unfortunately, the great unwashed rarely vote for a leader whom they have never met."
Also Said As
- hoi polloi
- unwashed masses
- great unhosed
- canaille
- commonality
- commonalty
- crowd
- demos
- everyone
- general public
- great unhosed
- great unwashed
- herd
- hoi polloi
- lower class
- many
- masses
- mob
- multitude
- odds and sods
- peasantry
- plebs
- populace
- proletariat
- rabble
- rank and file
- riffraff
- third estate
- trash
- unwashed
- unwashed masses
- working class