Multitude

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈmʌltɪtjuːd/

Definitions

1. A very large number of people or things
2. A great number or a large group of individuals or items exists together or is present at a given time
3. A vast assembly of persons or objects can be found collectively or in close proximity

Etymology: Latin "multitūdō" was built on "multus," meaning "many" or "much," and the suffix "-tūdō," which turns an adjective into a noun for a state or quality. A "multitūdō" was therefore the condition of being many, and only later did it come to mean a great number of people or things. English took the word from Old French "multitude," which already meant both a crowd of people and a wide diversity of things, and the word was in use in Middle English. The word's shape hides a useful fact. Its ending "-itude" has the same origin as the endings in "altitude," "fortitude," and "latitude," all formed from Latin adjectives plus "-tūdō." Those words all describe a quality, so "multitude" was once closer in spirit to "manyness" than to "crowd." The modern sense of a vast number is the one that won out.

Synonyms: crowd, mass, host, throng, swarm

Antonyms: few, singularity