the masses

Related to the masses: Opiate of the masses

the masses

The general population, especially the common or low-class portion thereof. Usually used to deride those seen as having unrefined tastes or intelligence. I know stupid action flicks like this are made to make money off the masses, but I just can't help but enjoy them. My father always believed religion was simply an opiate for the masses, but I've found true peace and happiness through it.
See also: masse
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

the masses

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]
See also: masse
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer.
See also:
  • common as muck
  • as common as muck
  • joint
  • tacky
  • as the day is long
  • keep telling yourself that
  • play-by-play (description)
  • play-by-play description
  • rough diamond
  • a rough diamond
References in periodicals archive
A comparison of the masses for these weights for the 1965, 1971, and 1989 determinations is shown in Fig.
The siting of the pergola catches the edges of the masses while letting the axis of the entrance slip by, thus gently defining another volume.
Some churches that have religious education for children between the Masses on Sunday mornings offer "faith formation" and doughnuts for the parents, too.
Scientists haven't had enough information to determine the masses of these quarks.
The masses prevented us from making an accurate stroboscopic examination of the normal portions of the vocal folds.
McArthur says that the team expects over the next year to ferret out the masses of several other planets from existing Hubble data.
The masses were 7 and 5 cm in diameter on the right and left, respectively; the skin covering the two masses was normal.
Other techniques described last month, while more speculative, may eventually enable astronomers to measure the masses of black holes going back to the era when galaxies first formed.
Another six stars require further study before the masses of their companions can be accurately measured.
Both theory and experiment so far suggest that any neutrino masses would be so peculiarly small as to be far out of line with the masses of all other forms of matter.
Such a configuration rotates as if the masses were fixed to a turntable.
But the standard model of fundamental particles and interactions says nothing directly about the masses of quarks and leptons.
In addition, says Lee Samuel Finn of Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., knowing the masses of binary neutron stars will prove invaluable for analyzing observations with a set of gravitational wave detectors now under construction.
"Although we don't have a good [theoretical] understanding of what any of the masses of the fundamental constituents are," says Chris Quigg, also of Fermilab, "the top is now so much heavier than any of the others.
The new technique measures the masses of huge protein molecules far more swiftly, accurately and easily than gel electrophoresis, the standard method for such analyses, say chemists Brian T.