Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A large group of people gathered or crowded closely together; a multitude. synonym: crowd.
  • noun A large group of things; a host.
  • intransitive verb To crowd into; fill.
  • intransitive verb To press against in large numbers.
  • intransitive verb To gather, press, or move in a throng.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Preterit of thring.
  • Thickly crowded or set close together; thronged; crowded.
  • Much occupied or engaged; busy.
  • noun A crowd or great concourse of people; a multitude, great in proportion to the space it occupies or can occupy.
  • noun A great number: as, the heavenly throng.
  • noun A busy period, great press of business, or the time when business is most active: as, the throng of the harvest; he called just in the throng.
  • noun Synonyms Crowd, etc. See multitude.
  • To come (or go) in multitudes; press eagerly in crowds; crowd.
  • To crowd or press; press unduly upon, as a crowd or multitude of people anxious to view something.
  • To crowd into; fill as or as with a crowd.
  • To fill or stuff.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • intransitive verb To crowd together; to press together into a close body, as a multitude of persons; to gather or move in multitudes.
  • transitive verb To crowd, or press, as persons; to oppress or annoy with a crowd of living beings.
  • transitive verb To crowd into; to fill closely by crowding or pressing into, as a hall or a street.
  • noun A multitude of persons or of living beings pressing or pressed into a close body or assemblage; a crowd.
  • noun A great multitude.
  • adjective Obs. or Prov. Eng. Thronged; crowded; also, much occupied; busy.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A group of people crowded or gathered closely together; a multitude.
  • noun A group of things; a host or swarm.
  • verb transitive To crowd into a place, especially to fill it.
  • verb intransitive To congregate.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • verb press tightly together or cram
  • noun a large gathering of people

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[Middle English, from Old English gethrang.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

From Middle English, from Old English þrang, ġeþrang ("crowd, press, tumult"), from Proto-Germanic *þrangwan, *þrangwō (“throng”), *þrangwaz (“push, drive”), from Proto-Indo-European *trenk(w)- (“to beat, hew, press”). Cognate with Dutch drang ("urge, push, impulse"), German Drang ("urge, drive, impulse"), Danish trang ("urge"), Norwegian trong ("need"), Icelandic þröng ("narrow, tightly pressed, crowd, throng"). Probably related to Albanian drojë ("fear, fear of the crowd") and to drang ("huge rod, pole, oar"). More at thring.

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Examples

  • Iffesheim was pure pleasure, like every other item of Baden existence, and all aristocratic, sparkling, rich, amusement-seeking Europe seemed gathered there under the sunny skies, and on everyone's lips in the titled throng was but one name -- Forest King's.

    Under Two Flags 1839-1908 Ouida 1873

  • As it happened, Sen. Joe Lieberman was also at the airport, surrounded by a throng from the national press corps.

    A Roaring Literary Lion Winston Groom 2011

  • Among the figures in the throng was a young man named Robert Vaughn, who would go on to become a well-known actor in films and television.

    Empire of Dreams Scott Eyman 2010

  • Joining the throng are the Budget Rent a Car unit of the Cendant Corporation ….

    Blog ads « BuzzMachine 2005

  • Her throng was the air, and her wings were the multitude of flying movements in her brain.

    Adventures in the Arts Informal Chapters on Painters, Vaudeville, and Poets Marsden Hartley

  • Lafayette on his white horse and a host of people of the slums, but this time in the midst of the throng was a great lumbering coach, in which rode Louis and his wife and children, for Paris now insisted that the court should no longer possess the freedom of Versailles in which to plot unwatched against the rights of the French people.

    A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. Carlton J. H. Hayes 1923

  • Among the throng was a strong contingent of young men from Liskeard, a town three miles distant, between whom and the youth of Menheniot an ancient feud existed.

    The Life of George Borrow Jenkins, Herbert 1912

  • As the hour for the arrival of the stage approached, the crowd massed in front of the hotel, filling the lobby, the arcade and the street, and still scattered through the throng were the men from the

    The Winning of Barbara Worth Harold Bell Wright 1908

  • Near the outer edge of the throng was a red-lipped Juno, superbly rounded, who had gleaned in the fields until she was all a Gipsy brown, and her movements of a Gipsy grace in their freeness.

    The Lions of the Lord A Tale of the Old West Harry Leon Wilson 1903

  • Outside the throng was a carriage, stopp'd for a minute by this tumult, and a servant at the horses 'heads.

    The Splendid Spur Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch 1903

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