Definify.com
Webster 1913 Edition
Crowd
Crowd
(kroud)
, Verb.
T.
[
imp. & p. p.
Crowded
; p. pr. & vb. n.
Crowding
.] [OE.
crouden
, cruden
, AS. crūdan
; cf. D. kruijen
to push in a wheelbarrow.] 1.
To push, to press, to shove.
Chaucer.
2.
To press or drive together; to mass together.
“Crowd us and crush us.” Shak.
3.
To fill by pressing or thronging together; hence, to encumber by excess of numbers or quantity.
The balconies and verandas were
crowded
with spectators, anxious to behold their future sovereign. Prescott.
4.
To press by solicitation; to urge; to dun; hence, to treat discourteously or unreasonably.
[Colloq.]
To crowd out
, to press out; specifically, to prevent the publication of; as, the press of other matter crowded out the article.
– To crowd sail
(Naut.)
, to carry an extraordinary amount of sail, with a view to accelerate the speed of a vessel; to carry a press of sail.
Crowd
,Verb.
I.
1.
To press together or collect in numbers; to swarm; to throng.
The whole company
crowded
about the fire. Addison.
Images came
crowding
on his mind faster than he could put them into words. Macaulay.
2.
To urge or press forward; to force one’s self;
as, a man
. crowds
into a room1.
A number of things collected or closely pressed together; also, a number of things adjacent to each other.
A
crowd
of islands. Pope.
2.
A number of persons congregated or collected into a close body without order; a throng.
The
crowd
of Vanity Fair. Macaulay.
Crowds
that stream from yawning doors. Tennyson.
3.
The lower orders of people; the populace; the vulgar; the rabble; the mob.
To fool the
crowd
with glorious lies. Tennyson.
Syn. – Throng; multitude. See
Throng
. Crowd
,Noun.
[W.
crwth
; akin to Gael. cruit
. Perh. named from its shape, and akin to Gr. κυρτόσ
curved, and E. curve
. Cf. Rote
.] An ancient instrument of music with six strings; a kind of violin, being the oldest known stringed instrument played with a bow.
[Written also
croud
, crowth
, cruth
, and crwth
.] A lackey that . . . can warble upon a
crowd
a little. B. Jonson.
Crowd
,Verb.
T.
To play on a crowd; to fiddle.
[Obs.]
“Fiddlers, crowd on.” Massinger.
Webster 1828 Edition
Crowd
CROWD
, CROWTH,Noun.
Definition 2024
crowd
crowd
English
Verb
crowd (third-person singular simple present crowds, present participle crowding, simple past and past participle crowded)
- (intransitive) To press forward; to advance by pushing.
- The man crowded into the packed room.
- (intransitive) To press together or collect in numbers; to swarm; to throng.
- They crowded through the archway and into the park.
- Addison:
- The whole company crowded about the fire.
- Macaulay:
- Images came crowding on his mind faster than he could put them into words.
- (transitive) To press or drive together, especially into a small space; to cram.
- He tried to crowd too many cows into the cow-pen.
- Shakespeare
- Crowd us and crush us.
- (transitive) To fill by pressing or thronging together.
- Prescott
- The balconies and verandas were crowded with spectators, anxious to behold their future sovereign.
- Prescott
- (transitive, often used with "out of" or "off") To push, to press, to shove.
- tried to crowd her off the sidewalk
- 2006, Lanna Nakone, Every Child Has a Thinking Style (ISBN 0399532463), page 73:
- Alexis's mementos and numerous dance trophies were starting to crowd her out of her little bedroom.
- (nautical) To approach another ship too closely when it has right of way.
- (nautical, of a square-rigged ship, transitive) To carry excessive sail in the hope of moving faster.
- (transitive) To press by solicitation; to urge; to dun; hence, to treat discourteously or unreasonably.
Derived terms
Translations
to press together in numbers
|
Noun
crowd (plural crowds)
- 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, 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.
- 1909, Archibald Marshall, The Squire's Daughter, chapterI:
- He tried to persuade Cicely to stay away from the ball-room for a fourth dance. […] But she said she must go back, and when they joined the crowd again […] she found her mother standing up before the seat on which she had sat all the evening searching anxiously for her with her eyes, and her father by her side.
- 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.
- (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.
- Alfred Tennyson (1809-1892)
- 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
Translations
group of people
|
|
group of things
|
|
the “lower orders” of people
Etymology 2
Celtic, from Welsh crwth.
Noun
crowd (plural crowds)
- (obsolete) Alternative form of crwth
- Ben Jonson
- A lackey that […] can warble upon a crowd a little.
- Ben Jonson
- (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"
Derived terms
Verb
crowd (third-person singular simple present crowds, present participle crowding, simple past and past participle crowded)