en masse
24
5.6
- idiom
- /ɑːn mæs/
:
en masa
- Hispanos, despite intense feelings of loyalty to their rural villages, moved en masse to cities in the 1940s.
- responded en masse
- participants responded en masse
- died en masse
You can't, you can't Marshall people en masse.
- You can't, you can't Marshall people en masse.
- Users have been migrating en masse to a different app called Rednote.
- I was designing for people en masse and I was presenting it to them myself.
- But once women are contracepting en masse, clearly a pregnancy is a a quote failure.
- It'll be the non western ideologues that the West's anti racists import en masse.
- And they're all, not all but en masse are trying to do good with this chaotic system.
- So again, listing agents are probably going to start advocating en masse.
Examples
-
Beyond the trees, the French infantry are advancing en masse.
-
Parliament should try to reach out to people wherever they are rather than hoping that people en masse will come to Parliament.
-
We're all to be replaced, en masse.
-
I was designing for people en masse and I was presenting it to them myself.
-
The children turned en masse, veered to the right, and began to walk toward the sea.
Fiction book (1996) -
Everyone started withdrawing their deposits en masse, and the banks had to call in all of their loans to try and survive.
-
Women responded en masse, with many entering the workforce or volunteering for nonactive military service.
Academic text (2015) -
Farming families moved en masse into urban centers, increasing political unrest and further priming the country for conflict.
-
On the night of November 18, Algerians took to the streets en masse with flags, homemade blowtorches, drums, and horns.
Academic text (2010) -
After the announcement, employees decided to leave the company en masse.
Synonyms
∞
1.0
In the same place or group with other people
768
1.0
Together in a single group
100
1.0
With everyone at the same time
91
3.6
All act together as a group
72
2.3
Together, all people act or decide as one
1
8.3
All together as one group without dividing
Antonyms
How Collective
24
5.6
136
2.5
Surface Forms
Morphology
en + masse
The phrase is a direct borrow from French meaning literally 'in mass' (en = in, masse = mass/group), so a learner who knows the constituent meanings can compositionally infer 'all together' or 'collectively'. Although the words are not native English items, the logic is transparent and parallels similar constructions in other languages, making the meaning predictable for learners aware of the components.
Etymology
The phrase en masse comes from French: en means 'in' and masse means 'mass' or 'a large group'. Imagine a crowd moving as one big body, and that picture explains why en masse means 'all together' or 'as a group'.