crunch

Formscrunches, crunching, crunched

Pluralcrunches

1. 1
   verbtransitive

   To make something, especially food, crackle loudly by crushing it.

   Children love to crunch hard candy at the movies.

   He crunched the dry leaves underfoot as he walked.

   Similarmunch, chomp, crush, scrunch

   Note

   The core sense, and the sound is in the word itself: crunch grew from earlier craunch and cranch, all imitative of the noise they name. It is transitive, so you crunch something, usually food, though Lord Byron's The Siege of Corinth (1816) has tusks that crunch'd o'er a skull. When the thing being crushed becomes the subject, English switches to the intransitive "be crushed" use.

2. 2
   nouncountable

   A noisy crackling sound, such as the one heard when something hard is crushed.

   The satisfying crunch of fresh snow accompanied every step.

   A sudden crunch from the kitchen made her look up.

   Similarcrackle, scrunch, crack

3. 3
   verbintransitive

   To give out a grinding sound, like that of something hard being crushed.

   The old wooden stairs crunch under heavy boots.

   Snow crunched beneath the tires as the car crept forward.

   Similarscrunch, crackle, grind, creak

4. 4
   verbintransitive

   Of something brittle, to crackle noisily as it is crushed or trodden on.

   The fallen leaves crunch satisfyingly beneath bare feet.

   The eggshells crunched as the truck rolled over them.

   Similarcrackle, scrunch, crack

   Note

   Here the crushed thing does the crunching: beetles crunched beneath the boots, leaves crunch underfoot. The verb takes no object, and it pairs naturally with beneath, under or underfoot, which point to whatever is doing the crushing. Turn the sentence round and you are back at the transitive verb.

5. 5
   noun

   A critical or decisive moment or event.

   When the crunch came, the negotiators finally reached a deal.

   Every athlete dreams of delivering in the crunch.

   Similarcrisis, showdown, clutch

   Note

   Two fixed frames carry most of this sense: when the crunch comes and when it comes to the crunch. Both introduce the point where talk must turn into action. John C. L. Gibson's Job (1985) uses the second for friends who, at the decisive moment, seem to know as much as God. Both frames take the definite article.

6. 6
   nounslangcountable

   A shortage of something in demand, such as money, fuel, or housing.

   The credit crunch made it hard for small businesses to borrow.

   A housing crunch in the city pushed rents to record highs.

   Similarshortage, squeeze, scarcity, pinch

   Oppositeglut, surplus, abundance

   Note

   Slang built on a simple pattern: a noun in front names what is running short, as in supply crunch, housing crunch or credit crunch. The BBC, reporting in 2021 on India's oxygen shortage, warns that a supply crunch could slow the drive further. The register is informal, so in careful analytical writing shortage is the safer choice.

7. 7
   verbslangtransitive

   To perform calculations on or otherwise process large amounts of numbers or data.

   Analysts crunch terabytes of sales data to spot trends.

   The software crunched the survey results in seconds.

   Similarprocess, analyze, compute, calculate

   Note

   Slang from the world of figures, most at home in the fixed phrase crunch numbers and its extension to data. The image is probably the sound of mechanical calculators grinding through sums. It still carries an informal edge. It is fine in conversation or a news story, but a formal report would say analyze or calculate.

8. 8
   nouncountable

   An abdominal exercise based on a sit-up, but in which the lower back stays in contact with the floor.

   The trainer demonstrated a proper crunch before the class began.

   He finished his workout with three sets of crunches.

   Note

   A gym word that usually travels in the plural with do: you do crunches, counted in sets, much as you do push-ups. What separates it from a full sit-up is range. The upper body curls toward the pelvis, working the rectus abdominis, while the lumbar spine stays pressed down and the trunk never lifts entirely.

9. 9
   verbtransitive

   To grind or press something with violence and noise.

   The glacier slowly crunched boulders beneath its enormous weight.

   Industrial crushers crunch scrap metal into compact bales.

   Similargrind, crush, pulverize, compact

   Note

   Here the crunch is heavy and slow, the work of mass rather than teeth. E. K. Kane in 1854 hears his vessel crunching her way through new ice. The word began as craunch or cranch, an imitation of the sound itself. Where the eating sense stays small and close to the mouth, this one suits ships, glaciers and machinery forcing a path. Crunch one's way through is its natural construction.

10. 10
    nouncountable

    A pressing problem that builds toward a crisis.

    The team faced a real crunch when funding dried up days before launch.

    A cash-flow crunch pushed the small business to the brink of closing.

    Similarsqueeze, pinch, bind, crisis, jam

    Note

    Here the word names a sustained bad state rather than a single moment. Martin H. Wolfson's Financial Crises (1994) uses it for a squeeze marked by depressed liquidity and weakened balance sheets across households, corporations and financial institutions. It differs from the "decisive moment" sense by lasting, and from the plain shortage by being the crisis a shortage produces.

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