crowd-surf

verb

ˈkrau̇d-ˌsərf 

variants or crowd surf

crowd-surfed or crowd surfed; crowd-surfing or crowd surfing

intransitive verb

: to lie down and be carried over the top of a crowd (as at a rock concert) with one's weight supported by the people in the crowd

Lemon lifted her arms, launched herself at the crowd gathered around the stage, and crowd-surfed. As Blue slid down to the stage, Jules launched herself after Lemon.

—Jude Watson

And I'm passed overhead, hand to hand, crowd surfing toward the door. I'm floating. I'm flying.

—Chuck Palahniuk

crowd-surfer noun

or crowd surfer

plural crowd-surfers or crowd surfers

This was Woodstock with a giant mosh pit full of colliding bodies and crowd-surfers, roiling and pullulating to the music.

—The New York Times

crowd-surfing noun

or crowd surfing

These days, enjoying the show often means "moshing." That is approximately the sound made in the "pit," the roiling sea of flesh in front of the stage where youngsters hurl themselves against one another. In a variation of that called "crowd surfing," bodies get tossed into the air and are passed overhead, from hand to hand. Members of the audience climb onto the stage and dive off.

—Michael J. Ybarra

Examples of crowd-surf in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

Someone used a fence to crowd-surf over thousands. Inside Madison Square Garden, basketball perfection just happened. —James L. Edwards Iii, New York Times, 17 May 2025

His first such performance came at age 14 on national TV when a teenage Malin crowd-surfed during a Saturday Night Live performance from the band Fear. —Shania Russell, EW.com, 15 June 2023

Models walked the runway like rock stars, spinning around at the end of the platform to trust-fall into a pit of strangers and crowd-surf across the room. —Tara Gonzalez, Harper's BAZAAR, 27 Feb. 2023

Word History

First Known Use

1991, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for crowd-surf

• scurf
• serf
• surf
• turf