Crushing

How to spell crushing

8 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce crushing

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does crushing mean?

1. adjectiveSo severe or overwhelming that it defeats or demoralises someone completely.
2. verbPresent participle of crush: pressing or squeezing something so hard that it breaks or loses its shape.

Crushing in a sentence

• adjective

  The team suffered a crushing defeat in the cup final.

• verb

  Crushing the garlic with the flat of a knife releases its flavour.

• adjective

  The redundancy came as a crushing blow to the whole family.

• verb

  The heavy machine spends all day crushing rock into fine gravel.

Where does crushing come from?

Language of origin: French

The base verb 'crush' arrived in Middle English during the 1300s from Anglo-Norman and Old French 'cruissir' (also spelled 'croissir'), which meant 'to gnash the teeth' or 'to crack and break with a grinding sound'. The Old French form is generally thought to be of Germanic origin, echoing the harsh noise of something being smashed. Over time the sense narrowed from the sound to the action itself: pressing something so hard that it loses its shape. The participle 'crushing' then developed a vivid figurative life, describing defeats, debts, and disappointments that flatten a person as surely as a weight flattens an object. Because the spelling simply adds '-ing' to a short, regular stem, the word keeps the single 's' and double-consonant-free shape of 'crush', which is the main thing to remember.

How the word is built

• crush (to press or squeeze hard)
• -ing (present participle / adjective suffix)