Ra'bble. n.s. [rabula, Lat. rabulari, low Lat.] A tumultuous croud; an assembly of low people.
Countrymen, will ye relent, and yield to mercy,
Or let a rabble lead you to your deaths? Shakesp.
Go bring the rabble here to this place. Shakesp.
Of these his several ravishments, betrayings, and stealing away of men's wives, came in all those ancient fables, and all that rabble of Grecian forgeries. Raleigh.
The better sort abhors scurrility,
And often censures what the rabble like. Roscommon.
That profane, atheistical, epicurean rabble, whom the whole nation so rings of, are not the wisest men in the world. South's Sermons.
To gratify the barbarous audience, I gave them a short rabble scene, because the mob are represented by Plutarch and Polybius with the same character of baseness and cowardice. Dryden's Preface to Cleomenes.
In change of government,
The rabble rule their great oppressors fate,
Do sov'reign justice and revenge the state. Dryden.
His enemies have been only able to make ill impressions upon the low and ignorant rabble, and to put the dregs of the people in a ferment. Addison's Freeholder, № 24.