Noun

(en noun)

* 1526 , William Tyndale, trans. Bible , Luke VII:

When he had ended all his sayinges in the audience of the people, he entred into Capernaum.

A group of people within hearing; specifically a group of people listening to a performance, speech etc.; the crowd seeing a stage performance.

* , chapter=3

, title= The Mirror and the Lamp , passage=One saint's day in mid-term a certain newly appointed suffragan-bishop came to the school chapel, and there preached on “The Inner Life.”  He at once secured attention by his informal method, and when presently the coughing of Jarvis […] interrupted the sermon, he altogether captivated his audience with a remark about cough lozenges being cheap and easily procurable.}}

We joined the audience just as the lights went down.

A formal meeting with a state or religious dignitary.

The readership of a book or other written publication.

A following.

Noun

(head)

(plural only, generically) People, especially a large number of people

* '>citation

Since first tossing its cartoonish, good-time cock-rock to the masses in the early ’00s, The Darkness has always fallen back on this defense: The band is a joke, but hey, it’s a good joke. With Hot Cakes—the group’s third album, and first since reforming last year—the laughter has died. In its place is the sad wheeze of the last surviving party balloon slowly, listlessly deflating.

(plural only) The total population.

The masses will be voting this Tuesday.

* 1975 , (Monty Python), '(Monty Python and the Holy Grail)'':

Dennis: Listen, strange women lyin' in ponds distributin' swords is no basis for a system of government. Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses , not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.

(plural only) The lower classes or all but the elite.