hoi polloi: /hoi-puh-LOI/

the common people; the masses

how to use in casual conversation:

"it'll be easy to rob the hoi polloi of their hard earned wages"

not to be confused with:

oi polloi

how it makes me feel:

happy monday. it wasn't my first choice. the MW WOTD was dissertate which i would have chosen over a colloquial phrase which is slightly out of character for dictionary.com but when i tried to open the MW page at work i got a "server may be down" type message so i begrudgingly went with hoi polloi which as a former teenage anarchist i have to admit i have a soft spot for but i'm an old man now and wise enough to know that virtually every '-ism' is just another box people try to force things into to better be able to describe the world which isn't necessarily a bad thing except that it leads to you being a stubborn closed minded ideologue or worse yet infects you with a worldview which you then try to use to force the world into agreeing with ignoring nuance and grey areas which is what the world is really composed of and why waste all that grey matter trying to tell everyone what they are or are not just to have a cohesive outlook where everybody is either a 'them' or an 'us'. but then again it might be better than a life of equivocation and compromise.