mob

[mob]

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noun

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.

adjective

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.

verb (used with object), mobbed, mob·bing.

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).

Origin of mob

1680–90; short for Latin mōbile vulgus the movable (i.e., changeable, inconstant) common people

Related formsmob·ber, mob·bist, nounmob·bish, adjectivemob·bish·ly, adverbmob·bish·ness, nounmob·bism, nounun·mobbed, adjective

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Related Words for mobbing

swarm, jostle, throng, crowd, riot, attack, jam, cram, fill, hustle, overrun, pack

Examples from the Web for mobbing

Contemporary Examples of mobbing

By the time she reached the parking lot, “people were just mobbing out of the mall.”
Gunman Kills Two People and Himself in Shooting at Oregon Mall
Winston Ross
December 12, 2012

Historical Examples of mobbing

Instead of mobbing her every man in the place started to laugh.
Lalage's Lovers
George A. Birmingham
I let my porch be used for meeting and mobbing, as you might say.
When Egypt Went Broke
Holman Day
There is no violence, no shooting or mobbing—only passive resistance.
Nasby in Exile
David R. Locke
He whipped the brute so thoroughly that it put an end to the mobbing in Honolulu.
Memoirs of John R. Young
John Young
I never heard any more talk of mobbing in that neighborhood.
Scraps of Biography
Various

British Dictionary definitions for mobbing

mob

noun

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

verb mobs, mobbing or mobbed (tr)

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)

Word Origin for mob

C17: shortened from Latin mōbile vulgus the fickle populace; see mobile

MOB

abbreviation for

mobile phone

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 mobbing

mob

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.

mob

"to attack in a mob," 1709, from mob (n.). Meaning "to form into a mob" is from 1711. Related: Mobbed; mobbing.