Crowd (kroud), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Crowded; p. pr. & vb. n. Crowding.] — Webster enters it under “crowd”
Etymology: [OE. crouden, cruden, AS. cr; cf. D. kruijen to push in a wheelbarrow.]
1. To push, to press, to shove. Chaucer.
2. To press or drive together; to mass together. "Crowd us and crush us." Shak.
3. To fill by pressing or thronging together; hence, to encumber by excess of numbers or quantity. The balconies and verandas were crowded with spectators, anxious to behold their future sovereign. Prescott.
4. To press by solicitation; to urge; to dun; hence, to treat discourteously or unreasonably. [Colloq.] To crowd out, to press out; specifically, to prevent the publication of; as, the press of other matter crowded out the article. -- To crowd sail (Naut.), to carry an extraordinary amount of sail, with a view to accelerate the speed of a vessel; to carry a press of sail.
4 other Webster entries under this spelling
Crowd, v. i.
1. To press together or collect in numbers; to swarm; to throng. The whole company crowded about the fire. Addison. Images came crowding on his mind faster than he could put them into words. Macaulay.
2. To urge or press forward; to force one's self; as, a man crowds into a room.
Crowd, n.
1. A number of things collected or closely pressed together; also, a number of things adjacent to each other. A crowd of islands. Pope.
2. A number of persons congregated or collected into a close body without order; a throng. The crowd of Vanity Fair. Macualay. Crowds that stream from yawning doors.--Tennyson.
3. The lower orders of people; the populace; the vulgar; the rabble; the mob. To fool the crowd with glorious lies. Tennyson. He went not with the crowd to see a shrine. Dryden.
Syn. -- Throng; multitude. See Throng.
Crowd, n.
An ancient instrument of music with six strings; a kind of violin, being the oldest known stringed instrument played with a bow. [Written also croud, crowth, cruth, and crwth.] A lackey that . . . can warble upon a crowd a little. B. Jonson.
Crowd, v. t.
To play on a crowd; to fiddle. [Obs.] "Fiddlers, crowd on." Massinger.
Shades of meaning
Fernald lists crowded only as an antonym, under vacant.
He lists it without comment; the entries above explain its neighbors.