masses

1. 1
   noun

   Plural of mass.

   The scan revealed two small masses in the patient's lungs.

   Thick masses of snow built up along the mountain road overnight.

   Note

   The ordinary countable plural, used when the lumps can be told apart. A scan finds masses in a lung, a pharmacist works up pill masses, and snow piles into masses along a road. The same spelling also serves the people-collectively meaning and the verb form. When you see the masses with the article, it usually means the crowd, not the lumps.

2. 2
   nounplural

   Ordinary people considered as one large collective group; the general population.

   The new policy was carefully designed to appeal to the masses.

   Radio brought news and entertainment to the masses across the country.

   Similarpublic, populace, people, multitude

   Oppositeelite

   Note

   In this use the word has no singular: one person is never "a mass," and the noun almost always comes with the. It moves easily between politics and pop culture. Shiping Hua writes of how the masses were mobilized in Communist China. Jason Heller, reviewing The Darkness in 2012, has the band tossing its rock to the masses. Bringing something to the masses is the typical frame.

3. 3
   nounplural

   The common people as distinct from the elite; everyone but the privileged few.

   The aristocracy lived in luxury while the masses struggled to find enough to eat.

   His speeches promised real power to the masses rather than the ruling class.

   Similarproletariat, commoners, populace, multitude, plebeians

   Oppositeelite, aristocracy, nobility

   Note

   The adjective in front usually reveals the speaker's sympathies. The ignorant masses looks down on everyone outside the elite. Emma Lazarus's huddled masses yearning to breathe free looks on them with welcome, and her line remains tied to immigration to the US. Choose the adjective with care, because the noun alone already sets the many against the few.

4. 4
   nounplural

   The entire population of a place considered as a single body.

   Public health campaigns aim to reach the masses, leaving no group behind.

   The empire struggled for years to feed the masses within its borders.

   Similarpopulation, populace, public, people

   Note

   Here everyone counts, rulers included: the whole electorate, not one class. It is the language of democratic legitimacy. That is why Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) can mock a king by demanding "a mandate from the masses." Set it against the class-based meaning. The masses who vote on Tuesday include the whole population, while the other sense leaves out the privileged few.

5. 5
   verb

   Third-person singular simple present of mass.

   Smoke masses over the valley whenever the factory runs at full capacity.

   The general masses his troops along the ridge before issuing the order.

   Note

   The verb works both with and without an object. Smoke masses over a valley on its own, while a general masses his troops along a ridge. Either way the meaning is gathering into one concentrated body. An obsolete intransitive use meant to celebrate mass, so in older religious writing he masses could mean he says Mass rather than he assembles anything.

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