horde

[ hawrd, hohrd ]
See synonyms for horde on Thesaurus.com
noun

  1. a large group, multitude, number, etc.; a mass or crowd: a horde of tourists.

  2. a tribe or troop of Asian nomads.

  1. any nomadic group.

  2. a moving pack or swarm of animals: A horde of mosquitoes invaded the camp.

verb (used without object),hord·ed, hord·ing.

  1. to gather in a horde: The prisoners horded together in the compound.

Origin of horde

1
First recorded in 1545–55; earlier also hord, horda, ultimately from Czech, Polish horda, from Ukrainian dialect gordá, Ukrainian ordá, Old Russian (originally in the phrase Zolotaya orda “the Golden Horde”), via Mongolian or directly from Turkic ordu, orda “royal residence or camp” (later, “any military encampment, army”); cf. Urdu

Other words for horde

Words that may be confused with horde

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2024

How to use horde in a sentence

  • The new day had hardly begun when the guerrilla hordes poured down on Foster's little army, confident of an easy victory.

  • His object was to reach Allahabad that night—not to hew his way through opposing hordes and risk being cut down in the process.

    The Red Year | Louis Tracy

  • These people were then compelled to enter into a contract with these wild hordes, and to buy themselves off by a yearly tribute.

  • But of the hordes of scribblers that followed in the wake of Hudibras, scarcely any possessed Butler's sense of satiric propriety.

    Aesop Dress'd | Bernard Mandeville

  • He could see how it went—the hordes of half-educated people who read books and were moved to write something like them.

    Love's Pilgrimage | Upton Sinclair

British Dictionary definitions for horde

horde

/ (hɔːd) /

noun

  1. a vast crowd; throng; mob

  2. a local group of people in a nomadic society

  1. a nomadic group of people, esp an Asiatic group

  2. a large moving mass of animals, esp insects

verb

  1. (intr) to form, move in, or live in a horde

Origin of horde

1
C16: from Polish horda, from Turkish ordū camp; compare Urdu

usage For horde

Horde is sometimes wrongly written where hoard is meant: a hoard (not horde) of gold coins

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

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