throng

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English[edit]

Pronunciation[edit]

Etymology[edit]

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.

Noun[edit]

throng (plural throngs)

  1. A group of people crowded or gathered closely together; a multitude.
    • 1905, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, chapter 2, The Affair at the Novelty Theatre[1]:
      Miss Phyllis Morgan, as the hapless heroine dressed in the shabbiest of clothes, appears in the midst of a gay and giddy throng; she apostrophises all and sundry there, including the villain, and has a magnificent scene which always brings down the house, and nightly adds to her histrionic laurels.
  2. A group of things; a host or swarm.

Translations[edit]

group of people
group of things; host or swarm

Quotations[edit]

Verb[edit]

throng (third-person singular simple present throngs, present participle thronging, simple past and past participle thronged)

  1. (transitive) To crowd into a place, especially to fill it.
  2. (intransitive) To congregate.
    • Shakespeare
      I have seen the dumb men throng to see him.
  3. (transitive) To crowd or press, as persons; to oppress or annoy with a crowd of living beings.
    • Bible, Mark v. 24
      Much people followed him, and thronged him.

Related terms[edit]

Translations[edit]

to crowd into a place, especially to fill it
to congregate
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