Word.ws English Dictionary

hoi polloi

/ˈhɔɪ pəˌlɔɪ/

hoi polloi noun: the common people; the masses. (Used with or without the definite article.).

Noun

hoi polloi pl (plural only)

  1. (collective, plural, plural-only) The common people; the masses. (Used with or without the definite article.)
    • The clientele is a select species of hoi polloi, intermixed with writers, painters and politicos and the more sophisticated American tourists.1942 April 5, Elizabeth Fagg, “Cafeteria in Mexico”, in The New York Times, →ISSN
    • But what, pray tell, is a “librarian”? Consult the same infallible source and you will learn: “One who has the care or charge of a library.” And where does that leave the most of us, hoi great unwashed polloi who have neither the “care” nor the “charge” of a library?1953 January, District of Columbia Library Association in Washington, D.C. Libraries, volume 24, number 1, page 1
    Antonyms:
    elite
  2. (nonstandard, plural, plural-only, see Usage notes) The elite.
    • Our moral standards sway Like Mrs. Tanqueray, And we are theoretically Most aesthetically Eager to display The fact that we're aggressively And excessively Anxious to destroy All the snobbery And hob-nobbery Of the hoi-polloi.1934, Noël Coward, Play Parade, page 334
    • "Maybe eating lunch on Nob Hill with your friends the hoi polloi." She didn't mean hoi polloi; but if you roll that phrase around your tongue long enough it can acquire a deceptive taste of affluence. "I don't have any hoi polloi friends"[.]1985, Herbert Gold, Stories of Misbegotten Love: Stories, page 135

hoi polloi meaning in Tamil and Malayalam

hoi polloi in Tamil

பொதுமக்கள்

hoi polloi in Malayalam

the common people, the masses, the populace
സാധാരണക്കാർ, പൊതുജനം, ജനത, ജനം, സാമാന്യജനങ്ങൾ, സാധാരണജനവിഭാഗം

Examples of hoi polloi in a sentence

  • Naturally, the anthropological society did not wish to share its business with hoi polloi, so Herr Hagenbeck kindly offered them a private viewing.2010, Guy Deutscher, Through the Language Glass, Arrow, published 2011, page 59:
  • The extension caused fury in Hampstead, where southbound trains began to arrive fully loaded with the hoi polloi of rapidly growing Edgware, Burnt Oak, Colindale, Hendon, Brent and Golders Green.2012, Andrew Martin, Underground Overground: A passenger's history of the Tube, Profile Books, →ISBN, page 178:
  • Given the behaviour of the members, who do normally come to Lord’s, this seemed a bizarre attempt to offload the unpleasantness on hoi polloi taking advantage of some rare £25 tickets.2023 July 4, Marina Hyde, “Who’s for political Bazball with Rishi? Voters? Tories? Anyone?”, in The Guardian:
  • "You gotta have references from the hoi polloi or else the MacDonalds won't give you the time of day.1992, Charles Mathes, The Girl with the Phony Name:

Synonyms of hoi polloi

19 more synonymsFewer synonyms

Antonyms

All synonyms and antonyms of hoi polloi

Forms of hoi polloi

alternative formpolloi

Origin of hoi polloi

Learned borrowing from Ancient Greek οἱ πολλοί (hoi polloí, “the many”).

Words that rhyme with hoi polloi

48 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about hoi polloi

What does hoi polloi mean?
Hoi polloi means the common people; the masses. (Used with or without the definite article.).
What is hoi polloi in Tamil?
Hoi polloi in Tamil is பொதுமக்கள். See Hoi polloi meaning in Tamil.
How do you use hoi polloi in a sentence?
Naturally, the anthropological society did not wish to share its business with hoi polloi, so Herr Hagenbeck kindly offered them a private viewing.
What part of speech is hoi polloi?
Hoi polloi is a noun.
How do you pronounce hoi polloi?
Hoi polloi is pronounced /ˈhɔɪ pəˌlɔɪ/.

Words near hoi polloi in the dictionary

  1. Hohs
  2. Hohtenn
  3. hoi
  4. Hoi Peng
  5. Hoi Ping
  6. hoi polloi
  7. hoi sin
  8. hoi sin sauce
  9. hoi toider
  10. hoi toiders
  11. hoiamide

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: hoi polloi (page history and authors); hoi polloi (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors); hoi polloi (Olam, E.K. Kurup corpus) (dataset and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-hoi polloi.ogg, en-au-hoi polloi.ogg.

Cite this entry: “hoi polloi.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/hoi_polloi. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.