stampede

1. (by extension)Examples: "The annual Muslim Hajj in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, which is attended by millions of pilgrims, has increasingly suffered from stampedes."; "Say, Smoke, this ain't no stampede. It's a exode-us. They must be a thousand men ahead of us an' ten thousand behind."; "I asked the conductor if he would ask Chester to hold the 16.35 to Euston—the last through train on a Saturday—but he said Virgin won't hold anything. We came to a stand at Chester at 16.35, and there was a sizeable stampede down the platform for the London train, but it had gone."Synonyms: crush, rushbroadly

2. (by extension)CanadaUSbroadly

3. (figurative) A sudden unconcerted acting together of a number of persons due to, or as if due to, some common impulse.Examples: "a stampede toward US bonds in the credit markets"; "So all the people, Sheila learned that night, were going away from London; and soon she and her husband would join in the general stampede of the very last dwellers in town."; "When the Credit Suisse's top investor, Saudi National Bank, told reporters last Wednesday it would not give more money to the bank, investors and depositors started a stampede for the exit, withdrawing hundreds of millions of dollars."figuratively