mob1
[mob]
- a disorderly or riotous crowd of people.
- a crowd bent on or engaged in lawless violence.
- any group or collection of persons or things.
- the common people; the masses; populace or multitude.
- a criminal gang, especially one involved in drug trafficking, extortion, etc.
- the Mob, Mafia(def 1).
- Sociology. a group of persons stimulating one another to excitement and losing ordinary rational control over their activity.
- a flock, herd, or drove of animals: a mob of sheep.
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- of, relating to, or characteristic of a lawless, irrational, disorderly, or riotous crowd: mob rule; mob instincts.
- directed at or reflecting the lowest intellectual level of the common people: mob appeal; the mob mentality.
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- to crowd around noisily, as from curiosity or hostility: Spectators mobbed the courtroom.
- to attack in a riotous mob: The crowd mobbed the consulate.
- Fox Hunting. to chop (a fox).
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Origin of mob1
1680–90; short for Latin mōbile vulgus the movable (i.e., changeable, inconstant) common people
mob2
[mob mohb]
- Digital Technology. (in a video game) a hostile nonplayer character that the player may target and fight.
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Origin of mob2
1980–85; coined by British video-game developer Richard Bartle; shortening of mobile(def 10) (in the sense “a moving sculpture hung from the ceiling”)
MOB
- mother of the bride.
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Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018
Related Words
clan, throng, horde, riot, crowd, swarm, mass, gang, flock, troop, jostle, gathering, set, cabal, proletariat, cattle, ring, drove, populace, massesExamples from the Web for mob
Contemporary Examples
The highest form of political courage is doing the right thing when the mob is against it.
General Brent Scowcroft, national security adviser to the first President Bush, shuffled head-down through the mob.
Moments later, a mob of about 25 young men burst through the door and unleashed a brutal attack on Singh.
As 30-Year Anniversary of Mass Killings in India Arrives, Sikhs Find Safety in USASimran Jeet Singh
October 31, 2014
Rather than helping though, policemen were actually complicit in the mob violence.
As 30-Year Anniversary of Mass Killings in India Arrives, Sikhs Find Safety in USASimran Jeet Singh
October 31, 2014
A man tells of his lucky escape from a mob and finding acceptance in America.
As 30-Year Anniversary of Mass Killings in India Arrives, Sikhs Find Safety in USASimran Jeet Singh
October 31, 2014
Historical Examples
If they rode down in a mob the boy would no doubt surrender.
Way of the LawlessMax Brand
The mob of London were less compassionate than the sailors had been.
Cameos from English History, from Rollo to Edward IICharlotte Mary Yonge
In like manner did the mob fashion lords and princes, each in its own image.
The Call of the Twentieth CenturyDavid Starr Jordan
I've heard these highbrow chaps talking about the Mob and the Tasteful Few.
The Foolish LoversSt. John G. Ervine
I don't want just to be one of a mob of fairly good writers.
The Foolish LoversSt. John G. Ervine
mob
- a riotous or disorderly crowd of people; rabble
- (as modifier)mob law; mob violence
- often derogatory a group or class of people, animals, or things
- Australian and NZ a flock (of sheep) or a herd (of cattle, esp when droving)
- often derogatory the masses
- slang a gang of criminals
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- to attack in a group resembling a mob
- to surround, esp in order to acclaimthey mobbed the film star
- to crowd into (a building, plaza, etc)
- (of a group of animals of a prey species) to harass (a predator)
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See also mobs
Word Origin
C17: shortened from Latin mōbile vulgus the fickle populace; see mobile
MOB
- mobile phone
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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
Word Origin and History for mob
n.
1680s, "disorderly part of the population, rabble," slang shortening of mobile, mobility "common people, populace, rabble" (1670s, probably with a conscious play on nobility), from Latin mobile vulgus "fickle common people" (the phrase attested c.1600 in English), from mobile, neuter of mobilis "fickle, movable, mobile" (see mobile (adj.)). In Australia and New Zealand, used without disparagement for "a crowd." Meaning "gang of criminals working together" is from 1839, originally of thieves or pick-pockets; American English sense of "organized crime in general" is from 1927.
The Mob was not a synonym for the Mafia. It was an alliance of Jews, Italians, and a few Irishmen, some of them brilliant, who organized the supply, and often the production, of liquor during the thirteen years, ten months, and nineteen days of Prohibition. ... Their alliance -- sometimes called the Combination but never the Mafia -- was part of the urgent process of Americanizing crime. [Pete Hamill, "Why Sinatra Matters," 1998]
Mob scene "crowded place" first recorded 1922.
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v.
"to attack in a mob," 1709, from mob (n.). Meaning "to form into a mob" is from 1711. Related: Mobbed; mobbing.
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Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper