swarm

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“
At first I supposed that a swarm was about me, yet it was late in the season, (it being about the 25th July.)

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Definitions (35)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (11)

  1. noun A large number of insects or other small organisms, especially when in motion.
  2. noun A group of bees with a queen bee in migration to establish a new colony. See Synonyms at flock1.
  3. noun An aggregation of persons or animals, especially when in turmoil or moving in mass: A swarm of friends congratulated him.
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Examples (50)

  • Suddenly the lasers fired faster, a spiderweb of beams overhead, and she realized that a swarm was ahead of the ship, pinpointed by the navigators somewhere below them tens of millions of kilometers ahead, mud and ice and rock closing fast The lasers fired even faster, and she bowed her head. —  F ;SF; - vol 086 issue 05 - May 1994
  • No, this has to be a covert operation, accomplished while most of the swarm is away from the Have. —  Golem in the Gears
  • This swarm, a sequence of earthquakes clustered in space and time, is occurring beneath the northern part of Yellowstone Lake in Yellowstone National Park. —  Latest Articles
  • It depends on the number of people currently connected to a file, known as the swarm. —  BBC News | Technology | World Edition
  • At the time of writing, though, the swarm was subsiding with no reports of such an event. —  New Scientist - Earth
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This word has been looked up 137 times.

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Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

horde ·  multitude ·  throng ·  thousand ·  crowd ·  flock ·  bunch ·  procession ·  cluster ·  host ·  herd ·  rid

Used in the same contextWord Family

swarm:   swarms ·  swarmed ·  swarming
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (5)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. Middle English, group of bees, from Old English swearm.
  2. Origin unknown.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (3)

  1. from Middle English swarm, from Anglo-Saxon swearm = Middle Dutch swerm, Dutch zwerm = Old High German swaram, Middle High German swarm, German schwärm = Icelandic svarmr = Swedish svärm = Danish sværm, a swarm; prob. orig. a swarm of bees, so called from their humming; akin to L. susurrus, a murmuring, humming (see susurrus), Greek σειρήν, a siren (see siren), Lithuanian surma, a pipe, Russian sviriele, a pipe, German schwirren, whir, Swedish svirra, hum, Danish svirre, whirl, etc., from the root seen in Sanskrit svar, sound: see swear.
  2. from Middle English swarmen, swermen, from Anglo-Saxon swirman = Middle Dutch swermen, Dutch zwermen = Middle High German swärmen, G. schwärmen = Swedish svärma = Danish sværme, swarm; from the noun.
  3. from Middle English swarmen (for swarven?); apparently a variant of swarve, simulating swarm, and perhaps associated with squirm.
 

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/swɔrm/
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