Other forms: throngs
A throng is a great crowd pressed close together. A throng of people, throng the streets, push through the throng.
The pressing is the point: a throng is a crowd with no room in it, which is what separates it from a gathering. It works as a verb, and thronged is how newspapers describe a street full of people. It is related to throttle, from the same idea of pressing.
1nounthrongA great crowd pressed close together.
“We pushed our way through the throng of shoppers on the busy high street.”
throng is a crowd.
Old English gethrang means a crowd or press, from a Germanic root meaning to press. Throttle is a relative.
Proto-Indo-European
*trenkʷ- — to beat; pound; hew; press
Proto-Germanic
*þrangwą
Old English
þrang
Middle English
throng
English, today
throng
Built from
From Middle English throng, thrang, from Old English þrang, ġeþrang (“crowd, press, tumult”), from Proto-Germanic þrangwą, þrangwō (“throng”), from þrangwaz (“pressing, narrow”), from þrinhwaną (“to press, to push; to force”), from Proto-Indo-European trenkʷ- (“to beat; pound; hew; press”). Cognate with Dutch drang, German Drang. Compare also German Gedränge (“throng”) and Persian ترنجیدن (“to beat, to push”). Compare typologically crowd (see there for more).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA