In one of the Spanish lessons I did on Duolingo this morning, I came across the interesting word muchedumbre, and thought I’d write a post about it.

Muchedumbre [mutʃeˈðumbɾe] means crowd, throng, multitude, mob, herd, or flock (of birds). It comes from Old Spanish muchedumne, muchidumne, from Latin multitūdinem (a great number [of people], multitude, numerousness, crowd, mob, throng), from multus (much, many), from Proto-Italic *moltos (much, many), from Proto-Indo-European *ml̥tós (crumbled, crumpled), from *mel- (to worry, be late, hesitate) [source].

Words from the same roots possibly include mejor (better, best), muy (very), mucho (much, a lot of, many) and multitud (multitude, crowd, a lot, loads) in Spanish, multitude in English, and mieux (better, best) in French [source].

Incidentally, if you’re keen on crowds, you might like to darse un baño de multitudes (to mingle with the crowd) [source], or darse un baño de masas (to go on a walkabout) [source]. Un baño de masas can also mean ‘to walk into the crowd (by a famous person)’ [source]. This might attract una muchedumbre de admiradores (a crowd of admirers).

I tend to avoid crowds, which isn’t difficult living in a small city in the wilds of north Wales. How about you?