crush

/kɹʌʃ/

crush noun: a violent collision or compression; a crash; destruction; ruin.

Noun

crush (countable and uncountable, plural crushes)

A violent collision or compression; a crash; destruction; ruin.
- The more highly the injured part is endowed with sensory nerves the more marked is the shock; a crush of the hand, for example, is attended with a more intense degree of shock than a correspondingly severe crush of the foot1921, Alexis Thomson, Alexander Miles, Manual of Surgery
Violent pressure, as of a moving crowd.
A violent crowding.
A crowd that produces uncomfortable pressure.
- a crush at a reception
(slang) A group or gang.
- Then there was another set who called themselves the "Ragged Thirteen"; and the account says "they looked it." And, like most diggers, this "crush," to quote my authority, could handle the cards a bit.1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 302
A crowd control barrier.
A drink made by squeezing the juice out of fruit.
- "Look," said Crabbe, warm orange crush in his hand.1958, Anthony Burgess, The Enemy in the Blanket (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 292
(informal) An infatuation with somebody one is not dating.
- I've had a huge crush on her since we met many years ago.
- How did you know cause I never told / But you found out / I've got a crush on you1985, The Jets, “Crush on You”, in The Jets, performed by Aaron Lael Zigman and Jerry Knight
1. (broadly, informal) The human object of such infatuation or affection.
  - He took his crush out for dinner.
  - It had taken nine years from the evening that Truman first showed up with a pie plate at her mother's door, but his dogged perseverance eventually won him the hand of his boyhood Sunday school crush.2004, Chris Wallace, Character: Profiles in Presidential Courage
A standing stock or cage with movable sides used to restrain livestock for safe handling.
(dated) A party or festive function.
- Two months ago I went to a crush at Lady Brandon's.1891, Oscar Wilde, chapter 1, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, London; New York, N.Y.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC
(Australia) The process of crushing cane to remove the raw sugar, or the season when this process takes place.
(uncountable) The situation where certain colors are so similar as to be hard to distinguish, either as a deliberate effect or as a limitation of a display.
- black crush; white crush
(uncountable) A paraphilia involving arousal from seeing things destroyed by crushing.
- Just as they say that marijuana leads to harder drugs, Gallegly is claiming that crush is a "gateway fetish"—a term I've never heard before. He claims that if someone starts with bugs they'll end up escalating to human babies in no time.2000, Katharine Gates, Deviant Desires: Incredibly Strange Sex, page 137

Verb

crush (third-person singular simple present crushes, present participle crushing, simple past and past participle crushed)

To press between two hard objects; to squeeze so as to alter the natural shape or integrity, or to force together into a mass.
- to crush grapes
- Ye shall not offer unto the Lord that which is bruised, or crushed, or broken, or cut1769, Benjamin Blayney, King James Bible, Leviticus 22:24
Synonyms:

squash, ace
To reduce to fine particles by pounding or grinding.
- to crush quartz
- With a wild scream he was upon her, tearing a great piece from her side with his mighty teeth, and striking her viciously upon her head and shoulders with a broken tree limb until her skull was crushed to a jelly.1912 October, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan of the Apes”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as chapter 1, in Tarzan of the Apes, New York, N.Y.: A[lbert]...
Synonyms:

comminute, pulverize
(figuratively) To overwhelm by pressure or weight.
- After the corruption scandal, the opposition crushed the ruling party in the elections
- We believe the invasion has reached its peak. The task remaining is to crush it. Our men are confident, the United Nations command is confident, that it will be crushed.1950 September 1, Harry S. Truman, 2:02 from the start, in MP72-73 Korea and World Peace: President Truman Reports to the People, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives...
Synonyms:

overtake
(colloquial, figuratively) To do impressively well at (sports events; performances; interviews; etc.).
- They had a gig recently at Madison Square—totally crushed it!
To oppress or grievously burden.
To overcome completely; to subdue totally.
- The sultan's black guard crushed every resistance bloodily.
- the prospect of the Duke's speedily overtaking and crushing the rebels1814, Sir Walter Scott, Waverley
(intransitive) To be or become broken down or in, or pressed into a smaller volume or area, by external weight or force.
- an eggshell crushes easily
(intransitive, transitive) To feel infatuation or unrequited love.
- She's crushing on him.
- Then walked in / The girl I'm crushin' / And the kid spilled juice / On my Mom's new cushion2000, “Aaron’s Party (Come Get It)”, performed by Aaron Carter
To give a compressed or foreshortened appearance to.
- He frames his subject in distant close-ups (we feel the distance, due mostly to the crushed perspective brought about by the telephoto lens).2003, Michel Chion, The Films of Jacques Tati, page 78
- They realise that trajectories, space expansion and crushing are different with different lenses, whether wide angle or telephoto, and that actors' eyelines will be altered.2010, Birgit Bräuchler, John Postill, Theorising Media and Practice, page 319
(transitive) To make certain colors so similar as to be hard to distinguish, either as a deliberate effect or as a limitation of a display.
- My old TV set crushes the blacks when the brightness is lowered.

crush meaning in Hindi, Tamil, Marathi and Urdu

crush in Hindi

to crush: कूटना kūṭnā, चीथना cīthnā
to crush, trample; to drive over: कुचलना kucalnā
to crush, cut into pieces: चूरना cūrnā
to crush, to pound thoroughly: कचूमर निकालना kacūmar nikālnā

crush in Tamil

நசுக்கு, அழுத்து, நெரி, நெருக்கு, நொறுக்கு, பிழி

crush in Urdu

خاک میں ملانا, کچلنا, کوٹنا, مسلنا, پامال کرنا, پیلنا

More languagesFewer languages

crush in Bengali: মাড়া maṛa
crush in Telugu: నలుపు nalupu, మట్టు maṭṭu
crush in Malayalam: ചതുക്കുക catukkuka
crush in Kannada: ನೂಕುನುಗ್ಗಲು, ಕಿಕ್ಕಿರಿದ ಜನರ ಒತ್ತಡ, ಸಂದಣಿ, ಹಣ್ಣಿನ ರಸ
crush in Punjabi: ਦਰੜਨਾ daraṛnā
crush in Gujarati: ક્રશ કરો, કચડી નાંખો, કચડી નાંખવું
crush in Odia: ମାଡ଼ିବା māṛibā, ଘଷିବା ghaṣibā
crush in Sanskrit: पिनष्टि pinaṣṭi, भनक्ति bhanakti
crush in Nepali: क्रश गर्नुहोस्, क्रश
crush in Tagalog: gusto, pagtingin
crush in Arabic: هَرَسَ harasa
crush in Malay: remuk, renyuk, hancur, kisar
crush in Indonesian: gebetan
crush in Thai: บด bòt, ขยี้ kà-yîi
crush in Vietnamese: đè, ép, nghiền

Examples of crush in a sentence

And I needed to get my schoolgirl crush under control.2019, Emma Lea, A Royal Enticement:
And the one subject that I get an A plus in every time, is the ancient art of crushing.2013, Sarra Manning, Diary of a Crush: Kiss and Make Up, →ISBN:
"I respect your wiring," he explained, "but I'm crushing on you.2013, Shozan Jack Haubner, Zen Confidential: Confessions of a Wayward Monk, →ISBN, page 130:

All 40 example sentences with crush

Synonyms of crush

All synonyms of crush

Forms of crush

Noun
plural	crushes
Verb
third-person singular present	crushes
present participle	crushing
past participle	crushed
past	crushed

Past tense of crush: crushed

Plural of crush: crushes

Origin of crush

From Middle English cruschen (“to crush, smash, squeeze, squash”), from Old French croissir (“to crush”), from Late Latin *crusciō (“to crush”), from Frankish *krustijan (“to crush, squeeze, squash”), from Proto-Germanic *kreustaną (“to crush, grind, strike, smash”). Cognate with Middle Low German tôkrosten (“to crush, shatter”), Swedish krysta (“to squeeze”), Danish kryste (“to squash”), Icelandic kreista (“to squeeze, squash”), Faroese kroysta (“to squeeze”), Gothic 𐌺𐍂𐌹𐌿𐍃𐍄𐌰𐌽 (kriustan, “to gnash”). Akin also to Middle Dutch crosen (“to bruise, crush”), Middle Low German krossen, krö̂sen, tôkrö̂sen (“to break, shatter”), Old Swedish krusa (“to crush”).

Words formed from crush

Phrases with crush

Words that rhyme with crush

9 more rhymesFewer rhymes

Questions about crush

What does crush mean?: Crush means a violent collision or compression; a crash; destruction; ruin.
What is crush in Hindi?: Crush in Hindi is कूटना (kūṭnā), चीथना (cīthnā), कुचलना (kucalnā). See Crush meaning in Hindi.
How do you use crush in a sentence?: And I needed to get my schoolgirl crush under control.
What part of speech is crush?: Crush can be a noun or a verb.
How do you pronounce crush?: Crush is pronounced /kɹʌʃ/.
What is the plural of crush?: The plural of crush is crushes.

Words near crush in the dictionary

Last updated: 2026-09-02

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-us-crush.ogg, EN-AU ck1 crush.ogg.

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