crowd

present singular third person crowds · participle present crowding · participle past crowded · past crowded

1. intransitiveTo press forward; to advance by pushing.

   The man crowded into the packed room.

   Synonyms: barge

2. intransitiveTo press together or collect in numbers.

   They crowded through the archway and into the park.

   2 more examples

   [T]he whole company closed their ranks, and crowded about the fire.

   1711 March 24 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “TUESDAY, March 14, 1710–1711”, in The Spectator, number 12; republished in Alexander Chalmers, editor, The Spectator; a New Edition, […], volume I, New York, N.Y.: D[aniel] Appleton & Company, 1853, →OCLC, page 141

   Images came crowding on his mind faster than he could put them into words.

   1911, Thomas Babington Macaulay, “Bunyan, John”, in 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica

   Synonyms: swarm, throng, crowd in, crush, pile, horde

3. transitiveTo press or drive together, especially into a small space; to cram.

   He tried to crowd too many cows into the cow-pen.

   1 more example

   […]The Time (miſ-order’d) doth in common ſence / Crowd vs, and cruſh vs, to this monſtrous Forme, / To hold our ſafetie vp.

   c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]. Epilogue.”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii], page 91, column 1

4. transitiveTo fill by pressing or thronging together

   The balconies and verandas were crowded with spectators, anxious to behold their future sovereign.

   1875, William Hickling Prescott, History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain

5. oftentransitiveTo push, to press, to shove.

   They tried to crowd her off the sidewalk.

   1 more example

   Alexis's mementos and numerous dance trophies were starting to crowd her out of her little bedroom.

   2006, Lanna Nakone, Every Child Has a Thinking Style, →ISBN, page 73

6. nauticalTo approach another ship too closely when it has right of way.
7. transitivenauticalTo carry excessive sail in the hope of moving faster.

   With all her might she crowds all sail off shore; in so doing, fights ’gainst the very winds that fain would blow her homeward; seeks all the lashed sea’s landlessness again; for refuge’s sake forlornly rushing into peril; her only friend her bitterest foe!

   1851 November 14, Herman Melville, “The Lee Shore”, in Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, 1st American edition, New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers; London: Richard Bentley, →OCLC, page 118

8. transitiveTo press by solicitation; to urge; to dun; hence, to treat discourteously or unreasonably.

plural crowds

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.

   2 more examples

   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.

   1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC, page 16

   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.

   1909 September 9, Archibald Marshall [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], “A Court Ball”, in The Squire’s Daughter, London: Methuen & Co. […], →OCLC, page 9

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.

   Synonyms: aggregation, cluster, group, mass

3. with definite articleThe so-called lower orders of people; the populace; the vulgar.

   He went not, with the Crowd, to ſee a Shrine;

   1700, [John] Dryden, “The Character of a Good Parson; Imitated from Chaucer, and Inlarg’d”, in Fables Ancient and Modern; […], London: […] Jacob Tonson, […], →OCLC, page 536

   1 more example

   […]To fool the crowd with glorious lies,[…]

   1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], “Canto CXXVI”, in In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, page 197

   Synonyms: everyone, general public, hoi polloi, masses, rabble, mob, tag-rag, unwashed

4. A group of people united or at least characterised by a common interest.

   We're concerned that our daughter has fallen in with a bad crowd.

   2 more examples

   That obscure author's fans were a nerdy crowd which hardly ever interacted before the Internet age.

   Maybe it was time I joined the crowd and bought a few of those for my own office.

   2015, Cameron Bane, Pitfall

plural crowds

1. alternativeobsoleteAlternative form of crwth.

   A lackey that […] can warble upon a crowd a little.

   1600 (first performance), Beniamin Ionson [i.e., Ben Jonson], “Cynthias Reuels, or The Fountayne of Selfe-Loue. […]”, in The Workes of Beniamin Ionson (First Folio), London: […] Will[iam] Stansby, published 1616, →OCLC

2. dialectalA fiddle.

   That keep their Consciences in Cases, / As Fiddlers do their Crowds and Bases,[…]

   1663 (indicated as 1664), [Samuel Butler], “The Second Part of Hudibras. Canto II.”, in Hudibras. The First and Second Parts. […], London: […] John Martyn and Henry Herringman, […], published 1678, →OCLC; republished in A[lfred] R[ayney] Waller, editor, Hudibras: Written in the Time of the Late Wars, Cambridge, Cambridgeshire: University Press, 1905, →OCLC, page 129

   1 more example

   […]wandering palmers, hedge-priests, Saxon minstrels, and Welsh bards, were muttering prayers, and extracting mistuned dirges from their harps, crowds, and rotes.

   1819 December 20 (indicated as 1820), Walter Scott, chapter XI, in Ivanhoe; a Romance. […], volume III, Edinburgh: […] Archibald Constable and Co.; London: Hurst, Robinson, and Co. […], →OCLC, page 286

present singular third person crowds · participle present crowding · participle past crowded · past crowded

1. intransitiveobsoleteTo play on a crowd; to fiddle.

   Fiddlers, crowd on, crowd on.

   1656, Thomas Middleton, William Rowley, Philip Massinger, The Old Law