Definition of "polloi"

From my vantage point in this teeming city it appears that Father—feeling, I suspect, that it was ordained—accepts Mr. Coolidge’s victory too complacently. His rural retreat is untouched by the temper of the polloi.

1966, George Backer, Appearance of a Man, Random House, page 93

On the other side a number of thinkers have espoused the cause of the polloi. History is the vicissitudes of common folk, and nothing nobler can be contemplated than the numberless multitudes who shape the world’s destiny.

1974, New Blackfriars, page 62

‘ […] What is M. Fouquet? M. Fouquet,’ replied d’Artagnan to himself, ‘is a handsome man, very much beloved by the women; a generous man, very much beloved by the poets; a man of wit, much execrated by the polloi. Not being woman, nor polloi, I neither love nor hate Monsieur the Superintendent. […]’

1995, A. Craig Bell, transl., Alexandre Dumas: Le Vicomte de Bragelonne (The Man in the Iron Mask): A Critical Study, Merlin Books, translation of Le Vicomte de Bragelonne ou Dix ans plus tard by Alexandre Dumas, page 34