Crowd

Pronunciation

• IPA: /kɹaÊŠd/
• Rhymes: -aÊŠd

From Old English crūdan. Cognate with Dutch kruien.

Full definition of crowd

Verb

1. (transitive) To push, to press, to shove.
2. (transitive) To press or drive together; to mass together.
• ShakespeareCrowd us and crush us.
3. (transitive) To fill by pressing or thronging together; hence, to encumber by excess of numbers or quantity.
• PrescottThe balconies and verandas were crowded with spectators, anxious to behold their future sovereign.
4. (transitive) To press by solicitation; to urge; to dun; hence, to treat discourteously or unreasonably.
5. (nautical) To approach another ship too closely when it has right of way
6. (intransitive) To press together or collect in numbers; to swarm; to throng
• AddisonThe whole company crowded about the fire.
• MacaulayImages came crowding on his mind faster than he could put them into words.
7. (intransitive) To urge or press forward; to force oneself.A man crowds into a room.
8. (nautical) (of a square-rigged ship) (transitive) To carry excessive sail

Derived terms

• crowd control
• crowd manipulation
• crowd out
• crowd psychology
• crowd sail

Noun

1. A group of people congregated or collected into a close body without order.
   After the movie let out, a crowd of people pushed through the exit doors.
• 1893, Walter Besant, The Ivory Gate Chapter Prologue, Athelstan Arundel walked home …, foaming and raging....He walked the whole way, walking through crowds, and under the noses of dray-horses, carriage-horses, and cart-horses, without taking the least notice of them.
2. Several things collected or closely pressed together; also, some things adjacent to each other.
   There was a crowd of toys pushed beneath the couch where the children were playing.
3. (with definite article) The so-called lower orders of people; the populace, vulgar.
• Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)To fool the crowd with glorious lies.
• John Dryden (1631-1700)He went not with the crowd to see a shrine.
4. A group of people united or at least characterised by a common interest.
   That obscure author's fans were a nerdy crowd which hardly ever interacted before the Internet age.

Synonyms

• (group of things) aggregation, cluster, group, mass
• (group of people) audience, group, multitude, public, swarm, throng
• (the "lower orders" of people) everyone, general public, masses, rabble, mob, unwashed

Derived terms

• crowd catch
• crowd-pleaser
• work the crowd

Celtic, from Welsh crwth.

Noun

1. (obsolete) A crwth, an Ancient Celtic plucked string instrument.
• Ben JonsonA lackey that ... can warble upon a crowd a little.
2. now dialectal A fiddle.
• 1819: wandering palmers, hedge-priests, Saxon minstrels, and Welsh bards, were muttering prayers, and extracting mistuned dirges from their harps, crowds, and rotes. — Walter Scott, Ivanhoe
• 1684: That keep their consciences in cases,
  As fiddlers do with crowds and bases — Samuel Butler, "Hudibras"

Verb

1. (obsolete, intransitive) To play on a crowd; to fiddle.
• MassingerFiddlers, crowd on.

Anagrams

• c-word