collapse
UK/kəˈlæps/
More pronunciations (1)Fewer pronunciations
New Zealand/kəˈlɛps/
collapse verb: to break apart and fall down suddenly; to cave in. Also the ellipsis of batting collapse.
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Verb
collapse (third-person singular simple present collapses, present participle collapsing, simple past and past participle collapsed)
- To break apart and fall down suddenly; to cave in.
- The wall collapsed when it was hit by the wrecking ball.
- A balloon collapses when the gas escapes from it.1843, Samuel Maunder, The Scientific and Literary Treasury
- To cease to function due to a sudden breakdown; to fail suddenly and completely.
- Pyramid schemes tend to generate profits for a while and then collapse.
- However much we like to think of ourselves as something special in world history, in fact industrial societies are subject to the same principles that caused earlier societies to collapse.1988, Joseph Tainter, “Summary and Implications”, in The Collapse of Complex Societies, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, →ISBN, page 216
- Synonyms:
- slump
- To fold compactly.
- Synonyms:
- telescope
- To conflate, to ignore the distinctions between.
- In a hierarchical list (such as a directory tree or table of contents), to hide the subentries of (an entry).
- Antonyms:
- expand
- To suffer a batting collapse.
- Immediately after his wicket the team collapsed for 69.
- To cause something to collapse.
- Hurry up and collapse the tent so we can get moving.
- Thomas added: "We presented our experiences of frantically trying to collapse a pram, surrounded by loads of grumpy commuters.2023 August 9, Paul Clifton, “Network News: Family-friendly travel: new standard covers pushchairs”, in RAIL, number 989, page 26
- To pass out and fall to the floor or ground, as from exhaustion or other illness; to faint.
- The exhausted singer collapsed on stage and had to be taken to the hospital.
- Synonyms:
- slump
Noun
collapse (countable and uncountable, plural collapses)
- The act of collapsing.
- She suffered a terrible collapse after slipping on the wet floor.
- in a state of nervous collapse
- Constant function, one-valued function (in automata theory) (in particular application causing a reset).
Also used as
collapse is also the ellipsis of batting collapse.
collapse meaning in Hindi, Marathi, Kannada and Gujarati
collapse in Hindi
- to fall down suddenly; to cave in
- गिरना girnā
collapse in Marathi
- to fall down suddenly; to cave in
- कोसळणे kosaḷṇe
- to cause to collapse
- कोसळवणे kosḷavṇe
collapse in Kannada
- to fall down suddenly; to cave in
- ಕುಸಿ kusi
collapse in Gujarati
- તૂટી પડવું, પડી ભાંગવું, પડી ભાંગવા માટે
More languagesFewer languages
- collapse in Nepali
- भासिनु bhāsinu, लड्नु laḍnu, खस्नु khasnu, भत्कनु bhatkanu
- collapse in Arabic
- اِنْهَار inhār, اِنْهِيَار inhiyār
- collapse in Malay
- rebah, runtuh
- collapse in Persian
- فرو ربختن foru-rixtan, رمبیدن rombidan
- collapse in Thai
- พัง pang, ถล่ม tà-lòm, ล้ม lóm
- collapse in Vietnamese
- đổ, sập, sụp đổ
Examples of collapse in a sentence
- The top six are assured of continental competition and after making a statement of intent against Stoke, it would take a dramatic collapse for Newcastle to surrender their place.2012 April 21, Jonathan Jurejko, “Newcastle 3-0 Stoke”, in BBC Sport:
- However the collapse in demand for rail and air travel caused by the pandemic has had a knock-on effect for the project's funding.2021 May 5, Paul Clifton, “Network News: Heathrow Western Rail Access scheme 'on hold'”, in RAIL, number 930, page 26:
Synonyms of collapse
Antonyms
Forms of collapse
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | collapses |
| present participle | collapsing |
| past participle | collapsed |
| past | collapsed |
| Noun | |
| plural | collapses |
Origin of collapse
From Latin collāpsus (past participle of collābor).
Words formed from collapse
- collapsable
- collapsible
- noncollapsed
- noncollapsing
- recollapse
- semicollapsed
- uncollapse
- uncollapsed
- batting collapse
- Bronze Age collapse
- collapsar
- collapsin
- collapsism
- collapsitarian
- collapsium
- collapsogram
- collapsology
- colony collapse disorder
- context collapse
- fantasy collapse
- gravitational collapse
- Late Bronze Age collapse
- model collapse
- paleocollapse
- pedigree collapse
- postcollapse
- precollapse
- vino collapso
- wavefunction collapse
Words that rhyme with collapse
Questions about collapse
- What does collapse mean?
- Collapse means to break apart and fall down suddenly; to cave in.
- What is collapse in Hindi?
- Collapse in Hindi is गिरना (girnā). See Collapse meaning in Hindi.
- How do you use collapse in a sentence?
- The top six are assured of continental competition and after making a statement of intent against Stoke, it would take a dramatic collapse for Newcastle to surrender their place.
- What part of speech is collapse?
- Collapse can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce collapse?
- Collapse is pronounced /kəˈlæps/ (UK).
- What is the past tense of collapse?
- The past tense of collapse is collapsed.
Words near collapse in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: collapse (page history and authors); collapse (Gujarati, IndicTrans2 machine translation) (model and license). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-collapse.ogg, en-au-collapse.ogg.
Cite this entry: “collapse.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/collapse. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.