Other forms: stampedes
A stampede is a sudden panicked rush of animals or people. Cause a stampede, a stampede for the door, cattle stampede.
In a crowd the deaths are usually from compression rather than trampling, since people are crushed standing up, which is why crowd management is about density rather than about panic. The word came from Mexican Spanish with the cattle trade.
1nounstampedeA sudden panicked rush of animals or people.
“The sound of the gunshot started a stampede of cattle across the plain.”
stampede is a rush.
Mexican Spanish estampida means a crash or bang, from a word meaning to stamp.
Proto-Indo-European
*stembʰ- — to trample down
Proto-Germanic
*stampōną — to compress, squeeze; to stamp
Gothic
*𐍃𐍄𐌰𐌼𐍀𐌾𐌰𐌽
Old Occitan
estampida
Spanish
estampida
es-MX
estampida — a stampede
English, today
stampede
Built from
The noun is derived from es-MX estampida (“a stampede”), from Spanish estampida, estampido (“a bang, a crack (sound)”), from Old Occitan estampida, from Gothic 𐍃𐍄𐌰𐌼𐍀𐌾𐌰𐌽, from Proto-Germanic stampōną (“to compress, squeeze; to stamp”), from Proto-Indo-European stembʰ- (“to trample down”). The verb is derived from the noun.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA