populace
(ˈpɒpjʊlɪs)
[a. F. populace (16th c. in Hatz.-Darm.), ad. It. popolaccio, popolazzo ‘the grosse, base, vile, common people, rifraffe people’ (Florio), f. popolo (:—L. populus people) + pejorative suffix -accio, -azzo:—L. -āceus.]
The mass of the people of a community, as distinguished from the titled, wealthy, or educated classes; the common people; invidiously, the mob, the rabble.
| 1572 Sir T. Smith in Ellis Orig. Lett. Ser. iii. III. 378 The unruly malice and sworde of the raging populace. 1601 Daniels Civ. Wars (1609) vii. lxxvii, T'accommodate, And calme the Peeres, and please the Populasse. c 1645 Howell Lett. (1688) III. 415 'Tis the Populass only, who see no further than the Rind of Things. 1723 Pres. St. Russia II. 141, I spit upon all the others. God bless the Populace. 1785 Burns Cotter's Sat. Night xx, A virtuous populace may rise the while, And stand a wall of fire around their much-lov'd Isle. 1792 Gouv. Morris in Sparks Life & Writ. (1832) II. 191 Thank God, we have no populace in America. 1821 Byron Two Foscari v. i. 259 The people!—There's no people, you well know it,..There is a populace, perhaps, whose looks May shame you. 1892 Ld. Lytton King Poppy viii, And, being but the Populace, presumes To call itself the People. |
b. poet. A multitude, crowd, throng. rare.
| 1871 R. Ellis Catullus lxiii. 65 With a throng about the portal, with a populace in the gate. |
c. fig.
| 1742 Young Nt. Th. iii. 124 Queen lilies! and ye painted populace! Who dwell in fields, and lead ambrosial lives. 1807–8 W. Irving Salmag. xx, The turtle-dove, the timid fawn, the soft-eyed gazelle, and all the rural populace who joy in the sequestered haunts of nature. |