Washed over front of crowd gathered together (7)

I believe the answer is:

batched

'gathered together' is the definition.
(to batch is to gather up in batches)

'washed over front of crowd' is the wordplay.
'washed' becomes 'bathed'.
'over' is an insertion indicator.
'front of' suggests taking the first letters.
The initial letter of 'crowd' is 'c'.
'bathed' placed around 'c' is 'BATCHED'.

(Another definition for batched that I've seen is " put into set".)

I've seen this clue in The Guardian.

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