Hoi polloi split by army regulars, by the way (4-1-3)
I believe the answer is:
rent-a-mob
'way' is the definition.
I don't know anything about this answer so I cannot judge whether this works.
'hoi polloi split by army regulars by' is the wordplay.
'hoi polloi' becomes 'mob' (I've seen this in another clue).
'split' becomes 'rent' (past tense of 'rend' meaning to split).
'by army regulars' becomes 'a' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
'by' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'rent'+'a'='renta'
'mob' put after 'renta' is 'RENT-A-MOB'.
'the' is the link.
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for rent-a-mob that I've seen before include "Crowd for hire" , "Hired crowd (facet.)" , "mass of people" .)