flock

Meanings

1. 1
   verb

   move as a crowd or in a group

   Tourists flocked to the shrine where the statue was said to have shed tears

2. 2
   noun

   A large number of animals associated together in a group; commonly used of sheep, but (dated) also used for goats, farmed animals, and a wide variety of animals.

   He told his father, and said it would be just suitable work for him to run about fields and woods amongst the strawberry hills after a flock of hares, and now and then lie down and take a nap on some sunny hill.

3. 3
   noun

   Those served by a particular pastor or shepherd.

   But lapsed into so long a pause again / As half amazed, half frighted all his flock: [...]

4. 4
   noun

   A large number of people.

   The heathen […] came to Nicanor by flocks.

5. 5
   verb

   To congregate in or head towards a place in large numbers.

   People flocked to the cinema to see the new film.

6. 6
   verb

   To flock to; to crowd.

   Good fellows, trooping, flocked me so.

7. 7
   noun

   A lock of wool or hair.

   I prythee, Tom, beat Cut's saddle, put a few flocks in the point.

8. 8
   noun

   Very fine sifted woollen refuse, especially that from shearing the nap of cloths, formerly used as a coating for wallpaper to give it a velvety or clothlike appearance; also, the dust of vegetable fibre used for a similar purpose.

   There was a neat hat-and-umbrella stand, and the stranger's weary feet fell soft on a good, serviceable dark-red drugget, which matched in colour the flock-paper on the walls.

Etymology

From Middle English flok (“tuft of wool”), from Old French floc (“tuft of wool”), from Late Latin floccus (“tuft of wool”), probably from Frankish *flokko (“down, wool, flock”), from Proto-Germanic *flukkōn-, *flukkan-, *fluksōn- (“down, flock”), from Proto-Indo-European *plewk- (“hair, fibres, tuft”). Cognate with Old High German flocko (“down”), Middle Dutch vlocke (“flock”), Norwegian dialectal flugsa (“snowflake”). Non-Germanic cognates include Albanian flok (“hair”).