Mob

Part of speech: noun, verb

Pronunciation: /mɒb/

Definitions

1. A crowd characterized by chaos and disorder that may engage in disruptive or violent behavior to achieve their goals
2. A group of individuals who gather in large numbers, often causing disruption or a disturbance while pursuing a common purpose or agenda
3. A disorganized assembly of people that can act aggressively or unruly in order to influence or achieve specific objectives

Etymology: The crowd sense comes from "mobile," a clipping of the Latin phrase "mobile vulgus," meaning "the fickle crowd." In that phrase "mobile" meant changeable or easily swayed, not "able to move," so the crowd was named for its restlessness before the word was shortened to "mob." In video games, the term has a different and much later origin. Richard Bartle used "mobile" in MUD1 (1978) for self-moving entities, such as non-player characters and monsters. The DikuMUD source code of 1991 shortened this to "mob." The expansion "man or beast" is a backronym, a later explanation built to fit the abbreviation.

Synonyms: crowd, horde, throng, multitude, gang

Antonyms: individual, solitary, loner, single, singular