American Heritage Dictionary Entry: crash HOW TO USE THE DICTIONARY To look up an entry in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, use the search window above. For best results, after typing in the word, click on the “Search” button instead of using the “enter” key. Some compound words (like bus rapid transit, dog whistle, or identity theft) don’t appear on the drop-down list when you type them in the search bar. For best results with compound words, place a quotation mark before the compound word in the search window. guide to the dictionary THE USAGE PANEL The Usage Panel is a group of nearly 200 prominent scholars, creative writers, journalists, diplomats, and others in occupations requiring mastery of language. Annual surveys have gauged the acceptability of particular usages and grammatical constructions. The Panelists NEED HELP SOLVING A CROSSWORD PUZZLE? Go to our Crossword Puzzle Solver and type in the letters that you know, and the Solver will produce a list of possible solutions. -- AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY APP The new American Heritage Dictionary app is now available for iOS and Android. THE AMERICAN HERITAGE DICTIONARY BLOG The articles in our blog examine new words, revised definitions, interesting images from the fifth edition, discussions of usage, and more. OPEN DICTIONARY PROJECT Share your ideas for new words and new meanings of old words! Start Sharing Now! -- See word lists from the best-selling 100 Words Series! Find out more! INTERESTED IN DICTIONARIES? Check out the Dictionary Society of North America at http://www.dictionarysociety.com crash 1 (krăsh) Share: Tweet v. crashed, crash·ing, crash·es v.intr. 1. a. To break violently or noisily; smash: The dishes crashed to pieces on the floor. b. To undergo sudden damage or destruction on impact: The car crashed into a tree. 2. To make a sudden loud noise: The cymbals crash at the end of each measure. 3. To move noisily or so as to cause damage: went crashing through the woods. 4. To undergo a sudden severe downturn, as a market or economy. 5. Computers To stop functioning due to a crash. 6. Slang To undergo a period of unpleasant feeling or depression as an aftereffect of drug-taking. 7. Slang a. To find temporary lodging or shelter, as for the night. b. To fall asleep from exhaustion. v.tr. 1. To cause to crash: crashed the truck into the signpost. 2. To dash to pieces; smash: crashed the ice with a sledgehammer. 3. Informal To join or enter (a party, for example) without invitation. n. 1. A sudden loud noise, as of an object breaking: She looked up when she heard the crash outside. 2. a. A smashing to pieces. b. A collision, as between two automobiles. See Synonyms at collision. 3. A sudden severe downturn: a market crash; a population crash. 4. Computers a. A sudden failure of a hard drive caused by damaging contact between the head and the storage surface, often resulting in the loss of data on the drive. b. A sudden failure of a program or operating system, usually without serious consequences. 5. Slang Mental depression after drug-taking. adj. Informal Of or characterized by an intensive effort to produce or accomplish: a crash course on income-tax preparation; a crash diet.Idiom: crash and burn Slang To fail utterly. [Middle English crasschen; probably akin to crasen, to shatter; see CRAZE.] crasher n. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved. crash 2 (krăsh) Share: Tweet n. 1. A coarse, light, unevenly woven fabric of cotton or linen, used for towels and curtains. 2. Starched reinforced fabric used to strengthen a book binding or the spine of a bound book. [From Russian krashenina, colored linen, from krashenie, coloring, from krasit', to color; see ker-3 in the Appendix of Indo-European roots.] The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fifth Edition copyright ©2022 by HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved. Indo-European & Semitic Roots Appendices Thousands of entries in the dictionary include etymologies that trace their origins back to reconstructed proto-languages. You can obtain more information about these forms in our online appendices: Indo-European Roots Semitic Roots The Indo-European appendix covers nearly half of the Indo-European roots that have left their mark on English words. A more complete treatment of Indo-European roots and the English words derived from them is available in our Dictionary of Indo-European Roots. 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