different between throng vs clutter

English

Etymology

From Middle English throng, thrang, from Old English þrang, ?eþrang (“crowd, press, tumult”), from Proto-Germanic *þrangw?, *þrangw? (“throng”), from *þrangwaz (“pressing, narrow”), from Proto-Indo-European *trenk?- (“to beat; pound; hew; press”). Cognate with Dutch drang, German Drang. Compare also German Gedränge (“throng”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) enPR: thr?ng, IPA^(key): /????/
• (US) enPR: thrông, thr?ng, IPA^(key): /????/, /????/
• Rhymes: -??

Noun

throng (plural throngs)

1. A group of people crowded or gathered closely together.

   Synonyms: crowd, multitude

   • 1939, Ammianus Marcellinus, John Carew Rolfe, Ammianus Marcellinus, Volume 1, Harvard University Press, page 463:

     Here, mingled with the Persians, who were rushing to the higher ground with the same effort as ourselves, we remained motionless until sunrise of the next day, so crowded together that the bodies of the slain, held upright by the throng, could nowhere find room to fall, and that in front of me a soldier with his head cut in two, and split into equal halves by a powerful sword stroke, was so pressed on all sides that he stood erect like a stump.
2. A group of things; a host or swarm.

Translations

Verb

throng (third-person singular simple present throngs, present participle thronging, simple past and past participle thronged)

1. (transitive) To crowd into a place, especially to fill it.
2. (intransitive) To congregate.
   • c. 1608, William Shakespeare, Coriolanus, Act II scene i^[3]:

     […] I have seen the dumb men throng to see him and / The blind to bear him speak: […]

3. (transitive) To crowd or press, as persons; to oppress or annoy with a crowd of living beings.

   • Much people followed him, and thronged him.

Related terms

• thring

Translations

Adjective

throng (comparative more throng, superlative most throng)

1. (Northern England, Scotland, dialectal) Filled with persons or objects; crowded.
2. (Northern England, Scotland, dialectal) Busy; hurried.
   • 1903, Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh, ch 59:

     Mr Shaw was very civil; he said he was rather throng just now, but if Ernest did not mind the sound of hammering he should be very glad of a talk with him.

English

Etymology

From Middle English cloteren (“to form clots; coagulate; heap on”), from clot (“clot”), equivalent to clot +? -er (frequentative suffix). Compare Welsh cludair (“heap, pile”), cludeirio (“to heap”).

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?kl?t?(?)/
• (US) IPA^(key): /?kl?t?/, [?kl???]
• Rhymes: -?t?(r)

Noun

clutter (countable and uncountable, plural clutters)

1. (uncountable) A confused disordered jumble of things.
2. (uncountable) Background echoes, from clouds etc., on a radar or sonar screen.
3. (countable) A group of cats; the collective noun for cats.
   • 2008, John Robert Colombo, The Big Book of Canadian Ghost Stories, Introduction

     Organizing ghost stories is like herding a clutter of cats: the phenomenon resists organization and classification.

4. (obsolete) Clatter; confused noise.
   • October 14 1718, John Arbuthnot, letter to Jonathan Swift

     I hardly heard a word of news or politicks, except a little clutter about sending some impertinent presidents du parliament to prison

   • 1835, William Cobbett, John Morgan Cobbett, James Paul Cobbett, Selections from Cobbett's political works (volume 1, page 33)

     It was then you might have heard a clutter: pots, pans and pitchers, mugs, jugs and jordens, all put themselves in motion at once […]

Derived terms

• surface clutter
• volume clutter

Translations

Verb

clutter (third-person singular simple present clutters, present participle cluttering, simple past and past participle cluttered)

1. To fill something with clutter.
2. (obsolete, intransitive) To clot or coagulate, like blood.

   (Can we find and add a quotation of Holland to this entry?)

3. To make a confused noise; to bustle.
   • ?, Alfred Tennyson, The Goose

     It [the goose] cluttered here, it chuckled there.

4. To utter words hurriedly, especially (but not exclusively) as a speech disorder (compare cluttering).

Translations