great unwashed
English
WOTD – 10 January 2008
Etymology
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.[1]
Pronunciation
- (Received Pronunciation) IPA(key): /ˌɡɹeɪt ʌnˈwɒʃt/
- (US) IPA(key): /ˌɡɹeɪt ʌnˈwɔːʃt/, /ˌɡɹeɪt ʌnˈwɑːʃt/
Audio (US) (file) Audio (AU) (file)
Noun
great unwashed pl (plural only)
- (idiomatic, derogatory) The general populace, particularly the working class.
- Synonyms: hoi polloi, unwashed masses; see also Thesaurus:commonalty
- 1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 30, in The History of Pendennis. […], volume (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850, OCLC 2057953:
- [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.
- 1995, Christina Blizzard, Right Turn: How the Tories Took Ontario:
- 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.
Translations
a contemptuous term for the populace, particularly the working class
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References
- 1835, The Complete Works of E. L. Bulwer, Volume 7: Paul Clifford, page 14