Could someone help me with a query? I thought that I had read somewhere that hoi polloi meant the upper strata of society, yet I read this today in the New York Times online edition:


On Monday his imagists sent him out, sans coat and tie, shirtsleeves rolled above the elbow, for a gambol with Laura to the Jefferson Memorial. The man who is sliding in the polls on the issue of whether he cares about average Americans and minorities was trying to seem in touch with the hoi polloi, shaking hands and chatting up tourists, singing out "Happy Fourth of July!"


Does hoi polloi mean the proletariat or the plutocrats?