fall apart

Verb

fall apart (third-person singular simple present falls apart, present participle falling apart, simple past fell apart, past participle fallen apart)

1. (intransitive) To disintegrate, to break into pieces.
   • My old briefcase is falling apart. I'll have to buy a new one.
   • England's World Cup dreams fell apart under a French onslaught on a night when their shortcomings were brutally exposed at the quarter-final stage.2011, Tom Fordyce, Rugby World Cup 2011: England 12-19 France

   Synonyms:

   break, break apart, break up, come apart, come apart at the seams, come undone, disintegrate, fall to bits, fall to pieces

2. (idiomatic, intransitive) To be emotionally in crisis.
   • As a result of being addicted to heroin, she was falling apart.
   • At first I used to look at so many of us having fights or crying or staggering around messed up somehow and think, "God, are we fucked up!" but now what I think is that it was a safe place to fall apart in — one of the few. You didn't have to be politically correct or well-behaved; you could be...1980 December 20, Andrea F. Loewenstein, “A Personal Remembrance Of The Saints”, in Gay Community News, volume 8, number 22, page 14

   Synonyms:

   crack up

3. (idiomatic, intransitive) To separate.
   • And when my care was moſt, by Gods pꝛouidence onely, by the burning aſunder of our ſpꝛitſaile-yard with ropes and ſaile, and the ropes about the ſpꝛitſaile-yard of the Carack, whereby we were faſt intangled, we fell apart, with burning of ſome of our ſailes which we had then on booꝛd.1599, Nicholas Downton, “The firing and sinking of the stout and warrelike Carack called Las Cinque Llaguas, or, The fiue Wounds, by three tall Ships set foorth at the charges of the right honorable...
   • Again the mountains fall apart, and in a wide basin of corn-land and pasture lies the bourgade of La Thuile.1887 November, Linda Villari, “Courmayeur”, in The Leisure Hour, London, page 776, column 2