Meanings
crowder1
crowder2
plural crowders · alternative crowther
- One who plays on a crwth (Welsh string instrument); a fiddler.
Certainly, I must confess my own barbarousness, I never heard the old song of Percy and Douglas that I found not my heart moved more than with a trumpet; and yet it is sung but by some blind crowder […]
a. 1587 (date written), Phillip Sidney [i.e., Philip Sidney], An Apologie for Poetrie. […], London: […] [James Roberts] for Henry Olney, […], published 1595, →OCLC; republished as Edward Arber, editor, An Apologie for Poetrie (English Reprints), London: [Alexander Murray & Son], 1 April 1868, →OCLC2 more examples
This comparison is all the more relevant as Uthr Ben represents himself in the Taliessin poem as bard, harper, piper, crowder —in a word, seven-score professionals all in one, an idea to be faintly traced in the Mabinogi of Branwen, when it makes Brân, on his expedition to Ireland, wade across with the musicians of his court on his shoulders
1888, John Rhŷs, Celtic Heathendom, Lecture VWhen Johann of Hembach was scarcely more than a child, his witch mother took him to the nocturnal assembly of demons and, because he was so clever a crowder, ordered him to play his kit and to climb up a tree from which he could be heard better.
1929, by Francesco Maria Guazzo, translated by Edward Allen Ashwin, Compendium Maleficarum, Book 1/Chapter 12
Crowder3
plural Crowders · alternative Crowther
- countableuncountableA surname originating as an occupation.
- countableuncountableA town in Panola County and Quitman County, Mississippi, United States.
- countableuncountableAn unincorporated community in Scott County, Missouri, United States.
- countableuncountableA town in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma, United States.
Origin
crowder · noun
- Middle Englishcrowdere
- Englishcrowder
From Middle English crowdere; equivalent to crowd + -er.
More words from Middle English
Full word history & related roots →Crowder · proper noun
From crowder, an occupational surname for someone who played the crwth.
Full word history & related roots →Rhymes & wordplay
Anagrams
Cite this entry
crowder. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/crowder
“crowder.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/crowder. Accessed November 2, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “crowder,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/crowder.
Source: crowder on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.