Crowd | Webster's Dictionary (1865)

Crowd, v. t.

verbtransitive

(krowd), v. t. [imp. & p. p. CROWDED; p. pr. & vb. n. CROWDING.] 1. To press, urge, or drive together. 2. To fill by pressing or urging 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.

Sense 3. To press by solicitation; to urge; to dun; hence, to treat discourteously or unreasonably.

To crowd sail (Naut.), to carry an extraordinary force of sail, with a view to accelerate the force of a ship; to carry a press of sail.

Crowd, v. i.

verbintransitive

v. i. 1. To press together in numbers; to swarm or be numerous. 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; as, a man crowds into a room.

Crowd, n.

noun

n. [A-S. croda, cread, crudh. See supra.]

A number of things collected or closely pressed together; also, a number of things lying or being adjacent.
A number of persons congregated and pressed together or collected into a close body without order.

Like his own Christian in the cage, he [Bunyan] found protectors even among the crowd of Vanity Fair. Macaulay. 3. The lower orders of people; the populace; the vulgar; the rabble. He went not with the crowd to see a shrine, But fed us by the way with food divine. Dryden. Syn.—Throng; multitude. See THRONG.

Crowd, n.

noun

[W. crwth, Ir. & Gael. cruit.] An ancient instrument of music with six strings; a kind of violin. [Obs.] [Written also crowd, crouth, and cruth.] The pipe, the tabor, and the trembling crowd. Spenser. A lackey that . . . can warble upon a crowd a little. B. Jonson.

Crowd, v. i.

verbintransitive

To play on a crowd; to fiddle. [Obs.] “Fiddlers, crowd on.” Massinger.