From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishthe mass of people/the population/workers etcthe mass of people/the population/workers etcPERSON/PEOPLEmost of the people in a group or society SYN the majority The war is strongly supported by the mass of the population. → mass
Examples from the Corpus
the mass of people/the population/workers etc• For the mass of the population, indeed, the shift of interest arguably went in the other direction.• Such feelings developed very much within the context of the lived experience of the mass of the population. 