Large crowds or groups of many people; vast numbers or quantities of things.
From Latin 'multitudo,' derived from 'multus' (many). The word entered English in medieval times to describe overwhelming numbers of people or things.
Walt Whitman famously declared 'I am large, I contain multitudes'—meaning we're all contradictory and complex—which is why this word became philosophical: it stopped just meaning 'lots of people' and started meaning the infinite variety within a single person.
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