Archaic term for a dense, moving crowd of people. Rarely used in modern Japanese; may appear in historical texts or descriptions of old scenes.
On the day of the festival, the streets were said to be jammed with a surging crowd.
Compound of 人 (ひと, 'person') and 崩れ (くずれ, 'crumbling' or 'collapse'), literally 'people crumbling', suggesting a chaotic, surging mass. The exact historical derivation is uncertain.