collapsing
- 1Present participle and gerund of collapse.
The bridge was collapsing under the weight of the floodwaters.
Collapsing share prices wiped out years of savings overnight.
Note
The -ing form drops the silent e of collapse and does three jobs: progressive verb (the roof is collapsing), gerund, and adjective before a noun (a collapsing economy). Most uses are intransitive, because things simply collapse on their own. It can also take an object. In the interface sense you collapse a directory tree to hide its subentries, and in the causative sense you make something collapse.
Collapsing the directory tree hides every subfolder.
Engineers are collapsing the old chimney before the new wing goes up.
collapsing is a form of collapse
collapse, verb: To break apart and fall down suddenly, as a structure giving way; to cave in. Full entry
- Spelling
- collapse → collapsing: drop the e, add -ing
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