crush
Americanverb (used with object)
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crushes,
present (3rd person singular)
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crushed,
past participle, past
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crushing
present participle
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to press or squeeze with a force that destroys or deforms.
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to squeeze or pound into small fragments or particles, as ore, stone, etc.
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to force out by pressing or squeezing; extract.
to crush cottonseeds in order to produce oil.
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to rumple; wrinkle; crease.
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to smooth or flatten by pressure.
to crush leather.
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to hug or embrace forcibly or strongly.
He crushed her in his arms.
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to destroy, subdue, or suppress utterly.
to crush a revolt.
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to overwhelm with confusion, chagrin, or humiliation, as by argumentation or a slighting action or remark; squelch.
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to oppress grievously.
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Archaic. to finish drinking (wine, ale, etc.).
verb (used without object)
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crushes,
present (3rd person singular)
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crushed,
past participle, past
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crushing
present participle
-
to become crushed.
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to advance with crushing; press or crowd forcibly.
noun
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crushes
plural
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the act of crushing; state of being crushed.
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a great crowd.
a crush of shoppers.
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Informal.
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an intense but usually short-lived infatuation with someone.
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the object of such an infatuation.
Who's your latest crush?
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verb phrase
idioms
verb
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to press, mash, or squeeze so as to injure, break, crease, etc
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to break or grind (rock, ore, etc) into small particles
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to put down or subdue, esp by force
to crush a rebellion
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to extract (juice, water, etc) by pressing
to crush the juice from a lemon
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to oppress harshly
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to hug or clasp tightly
he crushed her to him
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to defeat or humiliate utterly, as in argument or by a cruel remark
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(intr) to crowd; throng
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(intr) to become injured, broken, or distorted by pressure
noun
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a dense crowd, esp at a social occasion
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the act of crushing; pressure
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a drink or pulp prepared by or as if by crushing fruit
orange crush
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informal
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an infatuation
she had a crush on him
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the person with whom one is infatuated
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noun
Synonym Usage
See break.
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
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crushabilitynoun
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crushernoun
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crushableadjective
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uncrushableadjective
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uncrushedadjective
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well-crushedadjective
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crushablyadverb
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Participles
Conjugated Forms
Present
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crushsimple
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crushessimple
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have crushedperfect
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has crushedperfect
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am crushingprogressive
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are crushingprogressive
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is crushingprogressive
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have been crushingperfect progressive
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has been crushingperfect progressive
Past
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crushedsimple
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had crushedperfect
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was crushingprogressive
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were crushingprogressive
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had been crushingperfect progressive
Future
Etymology
Origin of crush
First recorded in 1300–50; Middle English cruschen, crusshen, from Middle French croi(s)sir, cruisir “to gnash one's teeth, make a crashing or cracking sound, crackle, rustle, smash,” Medieval Latin cruscīre “to crackle,” from Germanic; compare Gothic kriustan “to crunch, grind,” Old Swedish krusa, krosa “to crush,” krȳsta “to gnash (one's teeth),” Middle Low German krossen “to crush”
Explanation
When you crush something, you break it into tiny pieces or crumple it. If you crush the cans in your recycling bin, you'll make more room for more. A train can crush a car that's stalled on the tracks, and a person can crush an insect between her fingers. A figurative meaning of crush is to subdue or stop, like when a military dictator's forces crush a rebel uprising. You can also use crush as a noun to mean "an overwhelming number," like a crush of bodies on a packed subway car, or to describe infatuation, like your crush on your attractive neighbor, who also can be called your crush.
Vocabulary lists containing crush
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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.
See Examples For:
“It is objectively fun to have a little internet crush, and let that person be the senior senator from Georgia.”
From Salon ● Sep. 20, 2026
Your concerns about the relationship, including your crush, can be explored in couples therapy.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 18, 2026
They accuse doomers of being a front for companies seeking to use regulation to crush rivals.
From Barron's ● Sep. 15, 2026
The surge in Moderna and other biotech stocks helped crush the momentum trade.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 31, 2026
I crush maple leaves underfoot all the way to the wall separating school from the street.
From "Muffled" by Jennifer Gennari
If the Jacobian determinant is always a constant number that is not zero, then the function never folds or crushes space around a particular point.
From Science Daily ● Aug. 6, 2026
“LLY crushes expectations,” wrote RBC Capital Markets analyst Trung Huynh, describing the company’s second-quarter performance to investors.
From MarketWatch ● Aug. 5, 2026
Max Muncy crushes a two-run home run and Roki Sasaki showcases his velocity in the Dodgers’ 2-1 victory over the New York Yankees.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 18, 2026
The Tehran events alone are expected to attract more than 10 million mourners from across Iran, with strict security measures imposed and official media warned of a risk of crowd crushes.
From BBC ● Jul. 5, 2026
In an old-fashioned panic, perception creates its own reality: Someone shouts “Fire!” in a crowded theater and the audience crushes each other to death in its rush for the exits.
From "The Big Short" by Michael Lewis
“It crushed us all,” said Tim Lynn, a now-retired helicopter pilot and reporter who flew for 16 years for KTLA-TV.
From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 19, 2026
That is an astonishing reversal from Berkshire’s glory days during the 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s when it crushed the overall market by a wide margin.
From MarketWatch ● Sep. 18, 2026
"Second, if I did, I would have gotten crushed because I didn't have a why."
From Barron's ● Sep. 15, 2026
Ryan Garcia crushed Briton Conor Benn with a ruthless second-round stoppage to retain his WBC welterweight crown in a world title mismatch in Las Vegas.
From BBC ● Sep. 13, 2026
The remaining icicles were put into the pail, and with the mallet, Duane hammered them and crushed them into something like snow, but still with the icy crunch he preferred.
From "The Very, Very Far North" by Dan Bar-el
But crushing all those beans also produced a river of cheap oil.
From Salon ● Sep. 13, 2026
His crushing fatalism makes him an unlikely candidate to select patriotic verse for the festival’s poetry chapbook or to furnish interiors for its house-and-home exhibition.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 8, 2026
"The battle for succession has largely remained an in-house rather than a national matter following the weakening of political institutions and the crushing of dissenting voices," said Waluya.
From Barron's ● Aug. 27, 2026
Acme is essentially running our society, too, crushing consumers with shrinkflation, planned obsolescence and help lines staffed by AI bots.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 26, 2026
“We got this,” I promise, and when Mustafa throws down the card I was hoping for, I know we won by getting all the sets and crushing our opponents in the most humiliating way.
From "Amina's Song" by Hena Khan
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.
