the.com/rabble
A crowd, demoted — the word you reach for right before you lose respect for people.
means A disorganized, noisy crowd, usually the common mass of people viewed with contempt — mob, not movement.
from Traces to Middle English 'rabel,' meaning a pack of animals or string of nonsense words, likely tied to the idea of a jumble or tumult — things (or people) heaped together without order. By the 1500s it had settled onto crowds of people, specifically the ones a speaker wanted to look down on. The sneer was built in early: 'rabble' almost never describes a crowd the user respects.
- origin
- from middle english for disorderly heap
- rouse the rabble
- classic phrase meaning to incite a mob
- implies
- numbers without dignity
- contrast
- a crowd becomes rabble once it stops listening