Word.ws English Dictionary

crash dive

crash dive noun: an emergency maneuver by a submarine in which it suddenly descends, especially to considerable depth, usually in order to escape an attack or avoid a collision.

Noun

crash dive (plural crash dives)

  1. (idiomatic) An emergency maneuver by a submarine in which it suddenly descends, especially to considerable depth, usually in order to escape an attack or avoid a collision.
    • As the crash dive began at 1:50 p.m., the overboard ventilation valve had not been closed, which resulted in tons of water flooding the submarine.2000 March 19, Charles M. Cooke, “Letters: Loose Lips, Sinking Ships”, in Washington Post, retrieved 25 Oct 2015
  2. A rapid descent by a person or thing, ending in a violent collision.
    • In "Icarus's Mother," a skywriter salutes two girls on a beach with the message, "E=MC²," and then swirls into a deadly crash dive.1985 October 4, Mel Gussow, “Theater: Three by Sam Shepard”, in New York Times, retrieved 25 Oct 2015
  3. Three quarters of a front somersault, beginning on the feet and landing on the back.
    • The next routine can be the same as Routine 7 but with the crash dive being replaced with a one-and-three-quarter front somersault tucked (with a tariff of 0.7), making the total tariff 4.81990, Trampolining: The Skills of the Game

Verb

crash dive (third-person singular simple present crash dives, present participle crash diving, simple past crash dived or (chiefly US) crash dove, past participle crash dived)

  1. (idiomatic, intransitive, often hyphenated, submarine operation) To perform a crash dive.
    • Cuthburt turned the Grandmere in time to see the U-69 within yards of his ship. Graf wasted no time in taking evasive action, crash diving and turning, barely escaping the Grandmere’s efforts to ram him.2012 October 14, Lorna Inness, “Death on the Caribou”, in ChronicleHerald, Halifax, Canada, retrieved 25 Oct 2015
  2. (idiomatic, transitive, often hyphenated, submarine operation) To cause (a submarine) to perform a crash dive.
    • Siegmann was still obliged to crash-dive the sub three more times to escape twelve more bombs.2014, Philip Kaplan, Grey Wolves: The U-Boat War, "Sit There and Take It" (Google online preview)
  3. (intransitive, often hyphenated) To rapidly descend, intentionally or accidentally, in a manner that ends in a violent collision.
    • At 0640 hours, a Japanese suicide plane crash-dove into the USS Gilligan.2008, James Richard Snellen, South Pacific at Seventeen, →ISBN, page 48
  4. (transitive, often hyphenated) To rapidly descend, in a manner that ends in a violent collision with (something).
    • Twenty-two Jap suicide planes sighted destroyer off Okinawa April 16 and for more than two hours bombed and crash-dived the ship in a wild and apparently unorganized attack.1945 July 30, John Hersey, “Kamikaze”, in Life, volume 19, number 5, retrieved 28 Oct 2015, page 70
  5. (transitive, often hyphenated) To cause (something) to descend rapidly, in a manner that ends in a violent collision.
    • [T]he Japanese have organized a suicide corps of flyers whose mission is to crash-dive their explosives-laden aircraft into ships.1945 April 23, “World Battlefronts: Divine Tempests”, in Time, retrieved 25 Oct 2015

crash dive meaning in Tamil

crash dive in Tamil

ஆழப்பாய்வு

Forms of crash dive

Noun
pluralcrash dives
alternative formcrash-dive
Verb
third-person singular presentcrash dives
present participlecrash diving
pastcrash dived
past UScrash dove
past participlecrash dived

Questions about crash dive

What does crash dive mean?
Crash dive means an emergency maneuver by a submarine in which it suddenly descends, especially to considerable depth, usually in order to escape an attack or avoid a collision.
What is crash dive in Tamil?
Crash dive in Tamil is ஆழப்பாய்வு. See Crash dive meaning in Tamil.
What part of speech is crash dive?
Crash dive can be a noun or a verb.
What is the plural of crash dive?
The plural of crash dive is crash dives.

Words near crash dive in the dictionary

  1. crash courses
  2. crash cymbal
  3. crash cymbals
  4. crash diet
  5. crash diets
  6. crash dive
  7. crash dived
  8. crash dives
  9. crash diving
  10. crash dove
  11. crash dummy

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: crash dive (page history and authors); crash dive (Tamil Wiktionary) (page history and authors). 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-au-crash dive.ogg.

Cite this entry: “crash dive.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/crash_dive. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.