swarmed

Swarmed is the past tense of the verb swarm. It denotes movement or presence in large numbers, as a group of individuals or objects gathers, travels, or congregates. The usage covers both nonhuman and human contexts, ranging from insects and birds to crowds of people, vehicles, or items that seem to appear suddenly and densely in a location.

Biologically, swarming refers to coordinated, collective movement in animals. Many insects, such as locusts or honeybees, swarm during mating flights, migration, or colony establishment. In honeybees, a swarm is a period when a queen leaves with a portion of the workers to form a new colony; in locusts, dense swarms can cover large areas and devastate vegetation. In robotics and computing, swarm intelligence models use simple local rules to produce complex, coordinated behavior among multiple agents.

In human contexts, crowds, shoppers, or protesters can swarm a location, producing rapid, dense concentrations of people. The phrase "swarmed by" is often used to describe being surrounded or overwhelmed by many individuals. The term can carry a neutral descriptive value or emphasize chaos or intensity, depending on context.