# crowd
## English
### Pronunciation

* IPA: /kɹaʊd/
* Audio (US):(file)
* Rhymes: -aʊd

### Etymology 1

From Middle English crouden, from Old English crūdan, from Proto-West Germanic *krūdan, from Proto-Germanic *krūdaną, *kreudaną, ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *grewt- (“to push; press”). Cognate with German Low German kroden (“to push, shove”), Dutch kruien (“to push, shove”).

#### 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
    Synonyms: swarm, throng, crowd in
    They crowded through the archway and into the park.
** 1711 March 25 (Gregorian calendar), [Joseph Addison; Richard Steele et al.], “WEDNESDAY, 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:[T]he whole company closed their ranks, and crowded about the fire.The spelling has been modernized.
** 1911, Thomas Babington Macaulay, “Bunyan, John”, in 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica‎: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.
** c. 1596–1599 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, […]”, 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:[…] The Time (miſ-order’d) doth in common ſence / Crowd vs, and cruſh vs, to this monſtrous Forme, / To hold our ſafetie vp.
* (transitive) To fill by pressing or thronging together
** 1875, William Hickling Prescott, History of the Reign of Philip the Second, King of Spain:The balconies and verandas were crowded with spectators, anxious to behold their future sovereign.
* (transitive, often used with "out of" or "off") To push, to press, to shove.
    They tried to crowd her off the sidewalk.
** 2006, Lanna Nakone, Every Child Has a Thinking Style, →ISBN, 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.
** 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: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!
* (transitive) To press by solicitation; to urge; to dun; hence, to treat discourteously or unreasonably.

##### Synonyms

* becrowd (dated)

##### Derived terms

* crowder
* crowdingly
* crowd in on
* crowd out
* crowd together
* crowd up
* outcrowd
* overcrowd
* undercrowd

##### Translations
#### 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.
** 1892, Walter Besant, “Prologue: Who is Edmund Gray?”, in The Ivory Gate […], New York, N.Y.: Harper & Brothers, […], →OCLC, page 16: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 [pseudonym; Arthur Hammond Marshall], “A Court Ball”, in The Squire’s Daughter, New York, N.Y.: Dodd, Mead and Company, published 1919, →OCLC, page 9: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.
** 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:He went not, with the Crowd, to ſee a Shrine;
** 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC, Canto CXXVI, page 197:[…] To fool the crowd with glorious lies, […]
* 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.
    We're concerned that our daughter has fallen in with a bad crowd.
** 2015, Cameron Bane, Pitfall:Maybe it was time I joined the crowd and bought a few of those for my own office.

##### 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, hoi polloi, masses, rabble, mob, tag-rag, unwashed

##### Derived terms

* alone in a crowd
* anticrowd
* beat the crowd
* capacity crowd
* crowd art
* crowd catch
* crowd control
* crowd disease
* crowdest
* crowdfactoring
* crowdfund
* crowdfunding
* crowd-kill
* crowdlending
* crowdless
* crowdlike
* crowd manipulation
* crowd pleaser
* crowd-pleaser
* crowdpleaser
* crowd-pleasing
* crowd-poisoning
* crowd psychology
* crowd puller
* crowd-puller
* crowd sail
* crowdsale
* crowdsensing
* crowd-source
* crowdsource
* crowdsourcing
* crowd surf
* crowd surfer
* crowd surfing
* crowd vetting
* crowd wave
* crowdwork
* crowdworker
* crowdy
* flash crowd
* flashcrowd
* follow the crowd
* in crowd
* in-crowd
* play to the crowd
* rent-a-crowd
* three's a crowd
* tough crowd
* wisdom of the crowd
* work the crowd
* wrong crowd

##### Translations

    The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

### Etymology 2

Inherited from Middle English crowde, from Welsh crwth or a Celtic cognate.

#### Noun

crowd (plural crowds)
* (obsolete) Alternative form of crwth
** 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:A lackey that […] can warble upon a crowd a little.
* (now dialectal) A fiddle.
** 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:That keep their Consciences in Cases, / As Fiddlers do their Crowds and Bases, […]
** 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:[…] wandering palmers, hedge-priests, Saxon minstrels, and Welsh bards, were muttering prayers, and extracting mistuned dirges from their harps, crowds, and rotes.

##### Derived terms

* crowder

#### Verb

crowd (third-person singular simple present crowds, present participle crowding, simple past and past participle crowded)
* (obsolete, intransitive) To play on a crowd; to fiddle.
** 1656, Thomas Middleton, William Rowley, Philip Massinger, The Old Law:Fiddlers, crowd on, crowd on.

### References

“crowd”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

### Anagrams

* c-word