drove
n. countablen. a very large group of people or animals moving together in the same direction. You often use it to describe a crowd of people arriving at a place all at once.
n. a large number of people or animals acting or moving collectively. Often used in the plural form to emphasize the scale of a crowd or a mass movement.
People arrived in droves to see the new movie.
When the summer heat became unbearable, tourists headed to the coast in droves to find cooler air.
As the local economy collapsed, young professionals began leaving the city in droves, seeking better opportunities in the capital where the tech sector was still thriving.
From Middle English drove, drof, draf, from Old English drāf (“action of driving; a driving out, expulsion; drove, herd, band; company, band; road along which cattle are driven”), from Proto-Germanic draibō (“a drive, push, movement, drove”), from Proto-Indo-European dʰreybʰ- (“to drive, push”). Cognate with Scots drave, dreef (“drove, crowd”), Dutch dreef (“a walkway, wide road with trees, drove”), Middle High German treip (“a drove”), Swedish drev (“a drive, drove”), Icelandic dreif (“a scattering, distribution”). More at drive.
From earlier drave, from Middle English drave, draf, from Old English drāf, first and third person singular indicative preterite of drīfan (“to drive”).
Commonly used in the plural form within the prepositional phrase 'in droves'.