Definition of "stampede" [stam•pede]

• A sudden frenzied rush of panic-stricken animals. (noun)
• A sudden headlong rush or flight of a crowd of people. (noun)
• A mass impulsive action: a stampede of support for the candidate. (noun)
• To cause (a herd of animals) to flee in panic. (verb-transitive)
• To cause (a crowd of people) to act on mass impulse. (verb-transitive)

American Heritage(R) Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition. Copyright (c) 2011 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

• "The ethanol stampede is contributing to a sugar shortage."
• "Northland Scripture, the stampede is to the swift, the blazing of stakes to the strong, and the Crown in royalties, gathers to itself the fulness thereof."
• "As the cattle continued their short-term stampede, campus cops intervened and inexplicably held Kotran against his will."