Crowd (kroud), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Crowded; p. pr. & vb. n. Crowding.] [OE. crouden, cruden, AS. crdan; 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.
© Webster 1913.
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.
© Webster 1913.
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.
Macualay.
Crowds that stream from yawning doors.
{\*\bkmkstart here}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.
© Webster 1913.
Crowd, n. [W. crwth; akin to Gael. cruit. Perh. named from its shape, and akin to Gr. 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.
© Webster 1913.
Crowd, v. t.
To play on a crowd; to fiddle.
[Obs.] "Fiddlers,
crowd on."
Massinger.
© Webster 1913.