flock Meaning, Definition & Usage

  1. noun a church congregation guided by a pastor
  2. noun a group of birds
  3. noun (often followed by `of') a large number or amount or extent
    plenty; great deal; pot; sight; mint; slew; mountain; deal; wad; muckle; pile; lot; mickle; raft; quite a little; passel; hatful; mess; spate; heap; peck; stack; good deal; batch; tidy sum; mass.
    • a batch of letters
    • a deal of trouble
    • a lot of money
    • he made a mint on the stock market
    • see the rest of the winners in our huge passel of photos
    • it must have cost plenty
    • a slew of journalists
    • a wad of money
  4. noun an orderly crowd
    troop.
    • a troop of children
  5. noun a group of sheep or goats
    fold.
  6. verb move as a crowd or in a group
    • Tourists flocked to the shrine where the statue was said to have shed tears
  7. verb come together as in a cluster or flock
    cluster; clump; constellate.
    • The poets constellate in this town every summer

WordNet

Flock noun
Etymology
AS. flocc flock, company; akin to Icel. flokkr crowd, Sw. flock, Dan. flok; prob. orig. used of flows, and akin to E. fly. See Fly.
Definitions
  1. A company or collection of living creatures; -- especially applied to sheep and birds, rarely to persons or (except in the plural) to cattle and other large animals; as, a flock of ravenous fowl. Milton.
    The heathen . . . came to Nicanor by flocks. 2 Macc. xiv. 14.
  2. A Christian church or congregation; considered in their relation to the pastor, or minister in charge.
    As half amazed, half frighted all his flock. Tennyson.
Flock intransitive verb
Wordforms
imperfect & past participle Flocked ; present participle & verbal noun Flocking
Definitions
  1. To gather in companies or crowds.
    Friends daily flock. Dryden.
Flock transitive verb
Definitions
  1. To flock to; to crowd. Obs.
    Good fellows, trooping, flocked me so. Taylor (1609).
Flock noun
Etymology
OE. flokke; cf. D. vlok, G. flocke, OHG. floccho, Icel. flki, perh. akin to E. flicker, flacker, or cf. L. floccus, F. floc.
Definitions
  1. A lock of wool or hair.
    I prythee, Tom, beat Cut's saddle, put a few flocks in the point [pommel]. Shak.
  2. Woolen or cotton refuse (sing. ∨ pl.), old rags, etc., reduced to a degree of fineness by machinery, and used for stuffing unpholstered furniture.
  3. Very fine, sifted, woolen refuse, especially that from shearing the nap of cloths, used as a coating for wall paper to give it a velvety or clothlike appearance; also, the dust of vegetable fiber used for a similar purpose.
Flock transitive verb
Definitions
  1. To coat with flock, as wall paper; to roughen the surface of (as glass) so as to give an appearance of being covered with fine flock.

Webster 1913