crackup
a crash; collision.
a breakdown in health, especially a mental breakdown.
collapse or disintegration: the crackup of an alliance.
Origin of crackup
1Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
How to use crackup in a sentence
[Both guys crack up] “Is there an Intellegentsia Coffee in Puerto Rico?”
Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill on ‘22 Jump Street,’ Penis Kissing, and Julie Andrews’s Boobs | Kevin Fallon | June 10, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTI would crack up laughing and say, “Are you really shooting this?”
Lori Petty on ‘Orange Is the New Black,’ the Halcyon ‘90s, and Discovering Jennifer Lawrence | Marlow Stern | June 8, 2014 | THE DAILY BEASTBack then, things seemed simpler: the continent was due for imminent crack-up.
Wall Street’s Biggest Players Avoiding Bets on Eurozone Financial Crisis | Alex Klein | July 7, 2012 | THE DAILY BEASTFrom there we see Biden start to crack up—perhaps caught off guard by the unexpected compliment.
After hours of this—literally—men begin to crack up, and a class of 100 can shrink by 10 percent in a few minutes.
Some brave soul had hauled me out of that crack-up before the fuel tank went up in the fire.
Highways in Hiding | George Oliver SmithNor was there a trace anywhere in a vast circle—almost a half mile they searched—from the crack-up.
Highways in Hiding | George Oliver SmithThe puzzle began to go around and around in my head again, all the way back to that gleaming road and the crack-up.
Highways in Hiding | George Oliver SmithNow, it is only ignorance which causes ladies to believe that there is any necessity to 'crack up' the character of a servant.
Some Private Views | James PaynThey were being drawn earthward, and all the pilot could do only delayed the inevitable crack-up.
Voodoo Planet | Andre Norton
British Dictionary definitions for crack up
(intr) to break into pieces
(intr) informal to undergo a physical or mental breakdown
(tr) informal to present or report, esp in glowing terms: it's not all it's cracked up to be
informal, mainly US and Canadian to laugh or cause to laugh uproariously or uncontrollably
informal a physical or mental breakdown
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012
Other Idioms and Phrases with crackup
Suffer an emotional breakdown, become insane, as in He might crack up under the strain. This usage alludes to the result of cracking one's skull; from the early 1600s to crack alone was used in this way. [Slang; early 1900s]
The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary Copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
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