Brewer's: Linsey-woolsy Million (The).

The great unwashed. The artisan class, supposed to dress in linsey-woolsy. “Broad cloth” being for the gentry.

Truth needs not, John, the eloquence of oaths: Not more than a decent suit of clothes Requires of broad gold lace th' expensive glare, That makes the linsey-woolsy million stare.

PeterPindar: Silvanus Urban.

Source: Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, E. Cobham Brewer, 1894
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