swarm
1 Americannoun
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a body of honeybees that emigrate from a hive and fly off together, accompanied by a queen, to start a new colony.
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a body of bees settled together, as in a hive.
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a great number of things or persons, especially in motion.
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Biology. a group or aggregation of free-floating or free-swimming cells or organisms.
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Geology. a cluster of earthquakes or other geologic phenomena or features.
verb (used without object)
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to fly off together in a swarm, as bees.
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to move about, along, forth, etc., in great numbers, as things or persons.
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to congregate, hover, or occur in groups or multitudes; be exceedingly numerous, as in a place or area.
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(of a place) to be thronged or overrun; abound or teem.
The beach swarms with children on summer weekends.
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Biology. to move or swim about in a swarm.
verb (used with or without object)
noun
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a group of social insects, esp bees led by a queen, that has left the parent hive in order to start a new colony
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a large mass of small animals, esp insects
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a throng or mass, esp when moving or in turmoil
verb
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(intr) (of small animals, esp bees) to move in or form a swarm
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(intr) to congregate, move about or proceed in large numbers
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to overrun or be overrun (with)
the house swarmed with rats
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(tr) to cause to swarm
verb
Related Words
See crowd 1.
Other Word Forms
- swarmer noun
Etymology
Origin of swarm1
First recorded before 900; Middle English; Old English swearm; cognate with German Schwarm swarm, Old Norse svarmr “tumult”; the verb is derivative of the noun
Origin of swarm2
First recorded in 1540–50; origin uncertain
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
For the Pentagon, that might look like a way to combat swarming AI drones launched by an enemy, for example.
Crowds swarmed a revitalized downtown’s “MoonPie Over Mobile” celebration, in which an oversize replica of the famous Southern snack descended from the RSA’s building.
Whenever a swarm of pixies would hover around a particular spot of rock, the miners knew precisely where they should dig.
From Literature
“It was swarmed with motorcycle riders. All the vehicles that were moving were stopped.”
Dozens of armed government agents swarmed the offices of shrimp producer Grupo Lamar, a family owned business that had emerged as one of Venezuela’s largest exporters after the collapse of the oil industry.
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
