Overcrowded

Overcrowded

Adjective · /ˌəʊ.vəˈkraʊ.dɪd/

Definition

Containing too many people or things; filled beyond comfortable or safe capacity; having more occupants or elements than can be properly accommodated — of a room, vehicle, city, school, prison, or any space.

Origin

From over- (in excess) + crowded (past participle of crowd, from Old English crudan, to press, to push — related to Dutch kruien, to push a wheelbarrow). Crowded meaning filled with a press of people; overcrowded meaning filled beyond capacity. The word appearing from the nineteenth century as urbanisation, industrialisation, and population growth made overcrowding a significant social problem — the overcrowded slums of Victorian London, the overcrowded mills and factories of the industrial north. A word deeply embedded in the social history of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.