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Synonyms

crash course

American  

noun

  1. a brief, intensive course of instruction, as to prepare one quickly for a test.

crash course Idioms  

  1. A short, intensive training course, as in Daisy planned to take a crash course in cooking before she got married. [Colloquial; mid-1900s]

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Americans are about to get a crash course in the global economy — and it’s not just about oil supply.

From MarketWatch • Mar. 21, 2026

To communicate with his partner Minerva Fabienne Hase, he gave himself a crash course in English.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 17, 2026

It’s also been a crash course on what a civil rights emergency looks like.

From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 1, 2026

Think about the crash course in vote tabulation and Electoral College procedure that followed.

From Slate • Sep. 19, 2025

I gave myself a crash course in ’80s Saturday-morning cartoons.

From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023

Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.