great unwashedとは 意味・読み方・使い方

語源

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]

発音

• (Received 発音) IPA^(key): /ˌɡɹeɪt ʌnˈwɒʃt/
• (米国発音) IPA^(key): /ˌɡɹeɪt ʌnˈwɔːʃt/, /ˌɡɹeɪt ʌnˈwɑːʃt/

名詞

great unwashed pl (複数形 only)

1. (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 または II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], 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.

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