Crunchy

How to spell crunchy

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce crunchy

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does crunchy mean?

1. adjectiveHaving a firm, brittle texture that makes a sharp sound when bitten or crushed.

Crunchy in a sentence

• The fresh apples were sweet and crunchy.

• She likes her toast dark and crunchy rather than soft.

Where does crunchy come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This word grows from the verb 'crunch', which first appeared in English in the early 1800s as a vivid sound-imitation, an echo of the noise made when something hard and brittle is bitten or trodden on. The earlier form 'craunch' (recorded from the late 1600s) carried the same idea before settling into the spelling we know today. Words coined to mimic a sound, called onomatopoeia, often have no foreign root at all, and 'crunch' is a native English invention of exactly this kind. Adding the common adjective ending '-y' produced 'crunchy' by the mid-1800s, meaning 'tending to crunch when eaten or pressed'. The spelling is regular and the only real point to watch is keeping the 'tch'-style sound written simply as 'ch', so it reads crunch plus y with no hidden letters.

How the word is built

• crunch (imitative of a crackling, grinding sound)
• -y (adjective suffix: having the quality of)