Table of Contents
Definition of Crowd
(noun) A temporary collection of people in close proximity to each other, that interact and influence each other, while sharing an immediate common interest or goal.
Examples of Crowd
- A group watching a street performer.
- Fans at a baseball game.
Types of Crowd
Crowd Pronunciation
Syllabification: crowd
Audio Pronunciation
Phonetic Spelling
- American English – /krOUd/
- British English – /krOUd/
International Phonetic Alphabet
- American English – /kraʊd/
- British English – /kraʊd/
Usage Notes
- Plural: crowds
- Assembling perspective is a theory that contends crowds display collective behavior and individuals within the crowd are rational thinkers.
- Not to be confused with an aggregate.
- A type of collective behavior.
- The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind (1895) by Gustave Le Bon (1841–1931) was an early sociological work examining crowd behavior.
Related Quotation
- “When we think of a crowd, many of us think of aggregates, . . . a collection of people who happen to be in the same place at the same time but who share little else in common. However, the presence of a relatively large number of people in the same location does not necessarily produce collective behavior” (Kendall 2011:659).
Additional Information
- Word origin of “crowd” – Online Etymology Dictionary: etymonline.com
- Borch, Christian. 2012. The Politics of Crowds: An Alternative History of Sociology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Collins, Randall. 2008. Violence: A Micro-sociological Theory. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
- Drury, John, and Clifford John T. Stott, eds. 2013. Crowds in the 21st century: Perspectives from Contemporary Social Science. London: Routledge.
- Easley, David, and Jon Kleinberg. 2010. Networks, Crowds, and Markets: Reasoning About a Highly Connected World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Hughes, Helen MacGill. 1972. Crowd and Mass Behavior. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
- Sandine, Al. 2009. The Taming of the American Crowd: From Stamp Riots to Shopping Sprees. New York: Monthly Review Press.
Related Terms
Reference
Kendall, Diana. 2011. Sociology in Our Times. 8th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Works Consulted
Abercrombie, Nicholas, Stephen Hill, and Bryan Turner. 2006. The Penguin Dictionary of Sociology. 5th ed. London: Penguin.
Bruce, Steve, and Steven Yearley. 2006. The SAGE Dictionary of Sociology. Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.
Collins English Dictionary: Complete and Unabridged. 6th ed. 2003. Glasgow, Scotland: Collins.
Ferris, Kerry, and Jill Stein. 2010. The Real World: An Introduction to Sociology. 2nd ed. New York: Norton.
Griffiths, Heather, Nathan Keirns, Eric Strayer, Susan Cody-Rydzewski, Gail Scaramuzzo, Tommy Sadler, Sally Vyain, Jeff Bry, Faye Jones. 2016. Introduction to Sociology 2e. Houston, TX: OpenStax.
Hughes, Michael, and Carolyn J. Kroehler. 2011. Sociology: The Core. 10th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Jary, David, and Julia Jary. 2000. Collins Dictionary of Sociology. 3rd ed. Glasgow, Scotland: HarperCollins.
Kendall, Diana. 2011. Sociology in Our Times. 8th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Kimmel, Michael S., and Amy Aronson. 2012. Sociology Now. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Kornblum, William. 2008. Sociology in a Changing World. 8th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Macionis, John. 2012. Sociology. 14th ed. Boston: Pearson.
Oxford University Press. (N.d.) Oxford Dictionaries. (https://www.oxforddictionaries.com/).
Ravelli, Bruce, and Michelle Webber. 2016. Exploring Sociology: A Canadian Perspective. 3rd ed. Toronto: Pearson.
Scott, John, and Gordon Marshall. 2005. A Dictionary of Sociology. New York: Oxford University Press.
Shepard, Jon M. 2010. Sociology. 11th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Shepard, Jon M., and Robert W. Greene. 2003. Sociology and You. New York: Glencoe.
Stolley, Kathy S. 2005. The Basics of Sociology. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Thompson, William E., and Joseph V. Hickey. 2012. Society in Focus: An Introduction to Sociology. 7th ed. Boston: Allyn & Bacon.
Tischler, Henry L. 2011. Introduction to Sociology. 10th ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.
Turner, Bryan S., ed. 2006. The Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Wikipedia contributors. (N.d.) Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. (https://en.wikipedia.org/).
Cite the Definition of Crowd
ASA – American Sociological Association (5th edition)
Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “crowd.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Retrieved October 15, 2024 (https://sociologydictionary.org/crowd/).
APA – American Psychological Association (6th edition)
crowd. (2013). In K. Bell (Ed.), Open education sociology dictionary. Retrieved from https://sociologydictionary.org/crowd/
Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date – Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition)
Bell, Kenton, ed. 2013. “crowd.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Accessed October 15, 2024. https://sociologydictionary.org/crowd/.
MLA – Modern Language Association (7th edition)
“crowd.” Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Ed. Kenton Bell. 2013. Web. 15 Oct. 2024. <https://sociologydictionary.org/crowd/>.