Dictionary entry

Mob (3)

Webster's Dictionary 1913

Mob, n. [L. mobile vulgus, the movable common people. See Mobile, n.] 1. The lower classes of a community; the populace, or the lowest part of it.

A cluster of mob were making themselves merry with their betters. Addison.

2. Hence: A throng; a rabble; esp., an unlawful or riotous assembly; a disorderly crowd.

The mob of gentlemen who wrote with ease. Pope.

Had every Athenian citizen been a Socrates, every Athenian assembly would still have been a mob. Madison.

Confused by brainless mobs. Tennyson.

Mob law, law administered by the mob; lynch law. — Swell mob, well dressed thieves and swindlers, regarded collectively. Dickens.