English
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-.

Pronunciation
  • (British) enPR: thrŏng, IPA: /θɹɒŋ/
  • (America) enPR: thrông, IPA: /θɹɔŋ/
    • (cot-caught) IPA: /θɹɑŋ/
Noun

throng (plural throngs)

  1. A group of people crowded or gathered closely together.
    Synonyms: crowd, multitude
    • 1667, John Milton, “Book IV”, in Paradise Lost. […], London: […] [Samuel Simmons], and are to be sold by Peter Parker […]; [a]nd by Robert Boulter […]; [a]nd Matthias Walker, […], →OCLC ↗; republished as Paradise Lost in Ten Books: […], London: Basil Montagu Pickering […], 1873, →OCLC ↗:
      Not to know me argues yourselves unknown,
      The lowest of your throng.
    • 1904–1905, Baroness Orczy [i.e., Emma Orczy], “The Affair at the Novelty Theatre ↗”, in The Case of Miss Elliott, London: T[homas] Fisher Unwin, published 1905, →OCLC ↗; republished as popular edition, London: Greening & Co., 1909, OCLC 11192831 ↗, quoted in The Case of Miss Elliott (ebook no. 2000141h.html), Australia: Project Gutenberg of Australia, February 2020:
      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.
    • 1939, Ammianus Marcellinus, John Carew Rolfe, Ammianus Marcellinus, volume 1, Harvard University Press, page 463:
      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.
  2. A group of things; a host or swarm.
Translations Translations Verb

throng (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.
    • c. 1608–1609 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedy of Coriolanus”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC ↗, [Act II, scene i]:
      […] I have seen the dumb men throng to see him and / The blind to bear him speak: […]
  3. (transitive) To crowd or press, as persons; to oppress or annoy with a crowd of living beings.
    • 1611, The Holy Bible, […] (King James Version), London: […] Robert Barker, […], →OCLC ↗, Mark 5:24 ↗:
      Much people followed him, and thronged him.
    • 1850, [Alfred, Lord Tennyson], In Memoriam, London: Edward Moxon, […], →OCLC ↗, Canto XXI, page 35 ↗:
      A third is wroth: ‘Is this an hour
      ⁠For private sorrow’s barren song,
      ⁠When more and more the people throng
      The chairs and thrones of civil power?’
Related terms Translations Translations Adjective

throng

  1. (Northern England, Scotland) Filled with persons or objects; crowded. [from 16th c.]
    • 1882, Gerard Manley Hopkins, “Ribblesdale”, in Robert Bridges, editor, Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins: Now First Published […], London: Humphrey Milford, published 1918, →OCLC ↗, stanza 1, page 54 ↗:
      Earth, sweet Earth, sweet landscape, with leavès throng / And louchèd low grass, heaven that dost appeal / To, with no tongue to plead, no heart to feel; / That canst but only be, but dost that long— […]
  2. (Northern England, Scotland) Busy; hurried. [from 17th c.]


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