Webster
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Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary · 1913

Crowd

Crowd (kroud), v. 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, v. 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 room.

Crowd, n. [AS. croda. See Crowd, v. t. ] 1. 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.

He went not with the crowd to see a shrine. Dryden.

Syn. — Throng; multitude. See Throng.

Crowd, n. [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, v. t. To play on a crowd; to fiddle. [Obs.] "Fiddlers, crowd on." Massinger.

Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Noah Porter, editor (Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913). Public domain. Text as transcribed by MICRA, Inc., from Project Gutenberg. Changed for Deep Dive Bible: Greek, which our source spelled in Latin letters, set in Greek letters; entries of one spelling merged into one article; Greek words our source left out (shown as “?”), read from the 1898 printing, from the same plates (the Library of Congress’s copy), where the place could be found with certainty.