Crash

How to spell crash

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce crash

What does crash mean?

1. verbTo hit something violently and with a loud noise, often causing damage.
2. nounA violent collision, typically of vehicles, or the loud noise of such an impact.
3. nounA sudden, severe fall in the value of shares, prices, or a market.
4. verbOf a computer or program, to stop working suddenly and completely.

Crash in a sentence

• verb

  The driver lost control and watched the car crash into the barrier.

• noun

  The motorway crash closed three lanes during the morning commute.

• noun

  The stock market crash wiped out years of savings for many investors.

• verb

  The laptop tends to crash whenever too many tabs are open.

• verb

  Strong winds made the loose shutter crash against the wall all night.

• noun

  A loud crash from the kitchen meant a stack of plates had fallen.

Where does crash come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The word 'crash' first appears in English in the late 1300s and is widely regarded as imitative in origin, meaning it was coined to mimic the sharp, splintering noise of something breaking violently. It may have been reinforced by a blend of two older words, 'craze' (to shatter or crack) and 'dash' (to strike forcefully), which between them carry the senses of breaking and striking that 'crash' fuses together. For centuries it stayed close to that sound-based meaning, describing thunder, falling masonry, or shattering glass. The figurative financial sense, as in a market 'crash', took hold in the nineteenth century, while the computing sense of a sudden total failure is a twentieth-century extension. Because the word is built straight from its sound, the spelling is refreshingly regular, the only thing to watch being the 'sh' ending rather than any silent letters.

How the word is built

• crash (imitative root suggesting a sudden loud breaking noise)