crowded

1. 1
   adjective

   Filled with a dense pack or mass of people or things, to the point of teeming.

   Like a jar packed so full of marbles that not one more will fit.

   The platform grew crowded as commuters poured off every arriving train.

   Photographs from the festival show a crowded square with barely an inch of open ground.

   Similarpacked, jammed, congested, teeming

   Oppositeempty, deserted, uncrowded, quiet

   Note

   A participle that has settled into a full adjective. It compares with more and most, so a station grows more crowded and the busiest is the most crowded. It sits easily after be, as in a train that is usually crowded. Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" (1956) is never anything but full, yet still has space for the heartbroken.

2. 2
   verb

   Simple past and past participle of crowd.

   Protesters crowded the main avenue until traffic stopped completely.

   Guests had crowded into the hall long before the speeches began.

   Note

   The verb's past runs in two directions. Intransitively, people crowded forward or crowded together. Transitively, they crowded a room, crammed things into a small space, or shoved one another aside. After have it builds the perfect. After be it builds the passive, where it shades into the adjective meaning "packed". At sea a vessel crowded another when it closed on a ship that had right of way.

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