throng

Etymology

From Middle English throng, thrang, from Old English þrang, ġeþrang (“crowd, press, tumult”), from Proto-Germanic *þrangwą, *þrangwō (“throng”), from *þrangwaz (“pressing, narrow”), from Proto-Indo-European *trenkʷ- (“to beat; pound; hew; press”). Cognate with Dutch drang, German Drang. Compare also German Gedränge (“throng”).

noun

1. A group of people crowded or gathered closely together.
   Perhaps you suppose this throng / Can't keep it up all day long? 1885, Gilbert and Sullivan, The Mikado, //dummy.host/index.php?title=s%3AThe_Mikado%2FAct_I%2FPart_I act 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. 1905, Baroness Emmuska Orczy, chapter 2, in The Affair at the Novelty Theatre
   Here, mingled with the Persians, who were rushing to the higher ground with the same effort as ourselves, we remained motionless until sunrise of the next day, so crowded together that the bodies of the slain, held upright by the throng, could nowhere find room to fall, and that in front of me a soldier with his head cut in two, and split into equal halves by a powerful sword stroke, was so pressed on all sides that he stood erect like a stump. 1939, Ammianus Marcellinus, John Carew Rolfe, Ammianus Marcellinus, volume 1, Harvard University Press, page 463
   I imagine throngs of people – well-dressed, sipping spritzes – in front of a boat that, to me, is a coffin which held 700 people. 2019-05-12, Lorenzo Tondo, “I have seen the tragedy of Mediterranean migrants. This ‘art’ makes me feel uneasy”, in The Guardian
2. A group of things; a host or swarm.
   Bloody corpses, broken bones reveal / A throng of clashes crushed, our nightmare sealed / Amongst the shadows and the stones 2001, Trivium (lyrics and music), “Amongst the Shadows & the Stones”

verb

1. (transitive) To crowd into a place, especially to fill it.
   By one o'clock the place was choc-a-bloc. […] The restaurant was packed, and the promenade between the two main courts and the subsidiary courts was thronged with healthy-looking youngish people, drawn to the Mecca of tennis from all parts of the country. 1935, George Goodchild, chapter 5, in Death on the Centre Court
2. (intransitive) To congregate.
3. (transitive) To crowd or press, as persons; to oppress or annoy with a crowd of living beings.

adj

1. (Northern England, Scotland, dialectal) Filled with persons or objects; crowded.
2. (Northern England, Scotland, dialectal) Busy; hurried.
   Mr Shaw was very civil; he said he was rather throng just now, but if Ernest did not mind the sound of hammering he should be very glad of a talk with him. 1903, Samuel Butler, chapter 59, in The Way of All Flesh