crush

UK/kɹʌʃ/US/kɹʌʃ/

verbB15 meanings Very common — you will meet it every day · #1,697 of 15,258neutral

Other forms: crushed, crushing, crushes

To crush something is to press it so hard that it breaks or loses its shape. A garlic clove flattened under the side of a knife, a can stamped down for the recycling, ice crushed for a cocktail.

The word carries straight into fights and feelings: an army crushes a rebellion, a team is crushed six-nil, a person is crushed by bad news. As a noun, a crush is that helpless fancying you had at fourteen, and you have a crush ON someone, who can then be called your crush. A crush is also a squeeze of bodies, like the crush at the doors after a concert. And crushed works hard as an adjective: crushed velvet, crushed garlic, a crushing defeat.

Definitions of crush

1verbcrushTo press something so hard that it breaks or loses its shape.B1~49%
“Crush two cloves of garlic and add them to the pan.”
- Said"Crush the garlic with the flat of the knife; don't bother peeling it first."
- WrittenShe crushed the biscuits in a bag with a rolling pin, the best part of the recipe.
- UsedCrush the ice before it goes in the glass.
- ContrastCrush, not cut. Cutting leaves clean pieces; crushing flattens and breaks them however they fall. cut →
- Not thisYou do not crush an onion; you chop it. Crushing is for what gives: berries, cloves, cans.
- SimplyCrush the nuts. Put them on the cake.
Patterncrush + noun (garlic, ice, biscuits) · crushed + noun (tomatoes, chillies) · crush sth into / under · a crusher
synonyms: squash, flatten, grind
2verbdefeatTo defeat someone completely.B2~20%
“The government crushed the rebellion within a month.”
3verbtakeTo take away someone's confidence or hope.B2~2%
“The letter crushed him.”
4nounstrongA strong but short-lived romantic feeling for someone.B1~10%
“She had a crush on her piano teacher for a whole year.”
5nountightlyA tightly packed crowd.B2~19%
“I lost him in the crush at the entrance.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 11 sentences found in the wild and placed 10 of them on a sense (1 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.

Remember it

CRUSH → a whole crowd pressed tight at the door

A crowd pushing through one door crushes everyone in it; step on a can and you crush it flat.

Phrases it lives in

have a crush on someone — to be romantically attracted to someone, briefly and often secretly

Where it comes from

Crush came through Middle English cruschen and Old French croissir from a Frankish word krustijan, 'to crush, squeeze, squash', and Proto-Germanic *kreustana, 'to crush, grind, strike, smash'. Its Gothic cousin meant to gnash the teeth, and Swedish krysta still means to squeeze. The word has always sounded like the thing it does.

Proto-Germanic
*kreustaną — to crush, grind, strike, smash
Frankish
*krustijan — to crush, squeeze, squash
Latin
*crusciō — to crush
Old French
croissir — to crush
Middle English
cruschen — to crush, smash, squeeze, squash
English, today
crush

From Middle English cruschen (“to crush, smash, squeeze, squash”), from Old French croissir (“to crush”), from Latin crusciō (“to crush”), from Frankish krustijan (“to crush, squeeze, squash”), from Proto-Germanic kreustaną (“to crush, grind, strike, smash”). Cognate with Middle Low German tôkrosten (“to crush, shatter”), Swedish krysta (“to squeeze”), Danish kryste (“to squash”), Icelandic kreista (“to squeeze, squash”), Faroese kroysta (“to squeeze”), Gothic 𐌺𐍂𐌹𐌿𐍃𐍄𐌰𐌽 (“to gnash”). Akin also to Middle Dutch crosen (“to bruise, crush”), Middle Low German krossen, krö̂sen, tôkrö̂sen (“to break, shatter”), gmq-osw krusa (“to crush”).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practised in In the Kitchen, Moods & Relationships, Cutting & Breaking, Hitting & Pushing

Practise this word

crush in the wild

In the United States, interstate commerce in (hard) crush videos has been illegal since 2010, and many other countries also have banned them.
Crush fetish
Once the bones were crushed the marrow could be collected.
Chopping tool
More specifically, it refers to a device used to crush or grind apples as part of the overall juice production.
Cider mill
The crush occurred in Mina at the intersection of streets 204 and 223 leading to Jamaraat Bridge.
2015 Mina crowd crush
Using her position as a biology teacher, Gem sabotaged some of her students, while also encouraging Bailey Turner's (Calen Mackenzie) crush on her.
Gemma Reeves

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From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

Definitions of crush

1verbcrushTo press something so hard that it breaks or loses its shape.B1~49%

“Crush two cloves of garlic and add them to the pan.”

Said"Crush the garlic with the flat of the knife; don't bother peeling it first."
WrittenShe crushed the biscuits in a bag with a rolling pin, the best part of the recipe.
UsedCrush the ice before it goes in the glass.
ContrastCrush, not cut. Cutting leaves clean pieces; crushing flattens and breaks them however they fall. cut →
Not thisYou do not crush an onion; you chop it. Crushing is for what gives: berries, cloves, cans.
SimplyCrush the nuts. Put them on the cake.

Patterncrush + noun (garlic, ice, biscuits) · crushed + noun (tomatoes, chillies) · crush sth into / under · a crusher

synonyms: squash, flatten, grind

2verbdefeatTo defeat someone completely.B2~20%

“The government crushed the rebellion within a month.”

3verbtakeTo take away someone's confidence or hope.B2~2%

“The letter crushed him.”

4nounstrongA strong but short-lived romantic feeling for someone.B1~10%

“She had a crush on her piano teacher for a whole year.”

5nountightlyA tightly packed crowd.B2~19%

“I lost him in the crush at the entrance.”

Shares are an estimate: a language model read 11 sentences found in the wild and placed 10 of them on a sense (1 were unclear) — a count of our sample, not a measurement of English.