smash

SMASH/smæʃ/

Noun pluralsmashes

19 meanings of smash

1
verbtransitive
To break something brittle into pieces using violent force.
Vandals smashed every window in the abandoned factory.
One careless swing can smash a ceramic bowl into fragments.
Similarshatter, break, wreck, splinter, crush
Oppositemend, repair, fix
2
verbtransitive
To strike something with extreme force.
The batter smashed the ball deep into the outfield.
Heavy waves can smash a small boat against the rocks.
Similarhit, slam, hammer, whack, belt
3
nouncolloquialcountable or uncountable
A song, film, product, or similar thing that achieves great success and popularity.
The band's first album was an instant smash.
Critics predicted the play would be a smash on Broadway.
Similarhit
Oppositeflop, failure, bomb, turkey
Note
Show business and fashion share this one. A show, an album, a dress or a whole look can be a smash. It usually follows be, often with a qualifier: a smash on all fronts, a smash in our books. The fuller form is smash hit, and hit alone means the same. All of them are colloquial and best kept out of formal reports.
4
verbintransitive
To be broken into pieces as a result of a violent impact.
The plate smashed on the kitchen floor.
Old windows smash easily during a strong storm.
Similarshatter, break, splinter, disintegrate
5
verbfigurativelytransitive
To defeat someone completely and decisively in a contest.
The champions smashed every team they faced this season.
A well-prepared side can smash weaker opponents with ease.
Similarcrush, trounce, thrash, rout, demolish
6
verbfigurativelytransitive
To destroy something completely and abruptly.
The scandal smashed her chances of winning the election.
A single mistake can smash years of careful work.
Similardestroy, wreck, ruin, shatter, dash
Oppositeboost
7
nouncountable or uncountable
The loud noise of a violent impact, or the act of two things striking together forcefully.
The smash of breaking glass woke the whole house.
There was a tremendous smash as the two trucks collided.
Similarcrash
Note
The sense closest to the word's origin, which is probably imitative. Swedish smask and Low German smaksen both mean 'to smack the lips', and like them smash echoes the noise it names. It covers both the sound and the collision itself, so a cabinet hits the floor with a smash and cars meet in one. Crash, its nearest synonym, fits the same frames: with a smash, with a crash.
8
nouncountable or uncountable
In tennis and similar racket sports, a forceful overhead shot struck sharply downward into the opponent's court.
He leaped and finished the rally with a crushing smash.
Her smash clipped the baseline for a clean winner.
Similaroverhead
Note
Tennis players hit or fire a smash, and the shot's virtue is force rather than finesse. It may lack the beauty of a well-played half volley, yet it wins points. Power can also overshoot: against Djokovic in the 2011 Wimbledon final, Nadal fired one over the baseline. The stroke shares its name with the verb for hitting extremely hard.
9
verbslangvulgartransitive
To have sexual intercourse with someone.
He kept boasting that he had smashed her after the party.
She made it clear she only wanted to smash him, nothing more.
Note
Vulgar slang, and its grammar is looser than most verbs'. The partner can be the object (would you smash her?), it can stand for the act (did you smash it?), or the verb can go intransitive with with, as in Dave Chappelle's joke on Saturday Night Live in 2020. Keep it among friends who use it themselves. Anywhere else it reads as crude.
10
nouncolloquialIrelandUKcountable or uncountable
A collision between vehicles, especially on a road.
The smash on the dual carriageway caused tailbacks for miles.
Nobody was seriously hurt in the smash outside the pub.
Similarcrash
Note
Everyday British and Irish talk for a wreck on the road, at home in news copy: badly injured in the smash. It is not limited to cars. David Gunston, writing in Railway Magazine in 1958, praised film footage of 'a good, convincing train smash'. Outside the UK and Ireland, crash is the safer word for the same event.

11
nouncountable or uncountable
A foodstuff that has been mashed into a soft pulp.
She ordered avocado smash on sourdough for brunch.
He prefers a coarse smash to a smooth puree.
Similarmash, pulp, crush
Note
Menu language for food that is crushed but left chunky, with the ingredients named first. Lonely Planet Discover Australia (2017) lists an 'avocado and feta smash'. It pairs with the kitchen verb: a cook smashes an avocado and serves a smash. Next to puree, the word promises a coarser texture.
12
verbUStransitive
To change the shape of something by pressing on it steadily and forcefully.
Like a trash compactor squeezing garbage down into a solid block.
Workers smash the scrap metal into compact blocks before shipping.
He smashed the empty can under his boot until it was completely flat.
Similarcrush, squash, compress, flatten, crumple
Note
An American use, and a pressing rather than a blow: clay is smashed flat under a palm, and an avocado with a fork. Recipes rely on it. Doreen Virtue and Jenny Ross's Veggie Mama (2016) tells cooks to smash the avocado with the remaining ingredients. The same kitchen habit gives the brunch-menu noun.
13
nounarchaiccountable or uncountable
A disaster or thoroughly bad situation.
The bank's collapse threw the town's finances into a complete smash.
He returned from the war to find his affairs in a sad smash.
Note
Here what collapses is a plan or a situation, not a firm. In Dickens's Oliver Twist (1838), Toby hears that his associates are in custody and the place is full of traps. He bites his lips and says, 'This is a smash.' That construction is the heart of it, said of a whole state of affairs. Today it belongs to historical fiction and pastiche.
14
nounarchaicuncountable
Destruction; the state of being utterly wrecked.
The bombardment reduced the harbor to smash.
The reckless policy drove the whole enterprise to smash.
Note
A state rather than an event, and it lives mostly in one construction: in a state of smash. Stevenson's Treasure Island leaves the Admiral Benbow in such a state, with the very clock thrown down. Thomas Hughes's Tom Brown's School Days has door panels 'in a normal state of smash'. The phrase go to smash keeps the same old mass noun.
15
nounarchaiccountable or uncountable
A bankruptcy; a financial collapse.
The railway's smash wiped out thousands of small investors.
After the smash, creditors seized everything the firm owned.
Note
Colloquial commercial talk of the nineteenth century, now archaic, that pictures a business failure as a crash. Montagu, Deacon and De Gex's Reports of Cases in Bankruptcy (1845) describe a showy Cheapside shop that trades for a month "and then comes a smash." Here the smash simply arrives, like an accident. The same image of ruin sits in the phrase "go to smash". In modern writing, use bankruptcy unless you want a period flavor.
16
nouncountable or uncountable
A julep-style cocktail made with chunks of fresh fruit that can be eaten after the drink is finished.
The bartender muddled mint and peaches into a summer smash.
They sipped bourbon smashes on the porch all evening.
Note
A cocktail-menu term from the julep family in which the fruit is not just garnish. The chunks stay in the glass and are meant to be eaten once the drink is gone. That edible fruit is what sets this drink apart from a plain julep.
17
nouncolloquialcountable or uncountable
Airspeed; the dynamic pressure produced by an aircraft's motion through the air.
Fighter pilots talk about keeping their smash up in a dogfight.
The jet bled off smash as it pulled hard through the turn.
Similarairspeed, speed
Note
Pilots' shorthand, informal even within aviation, for the speed an aircraft carries and the air pressure it builds. It is a mass noun that a pilot gains, keeps or loses. In Tom Clancy and Chuck Horner's Every Man A Tiger (2008), the red team needs 'sufficient smash (airspeed)' to turn on its targets. The bracketed word shows that outsiders still need it explained.
18
verbarchaicintransitive
To collapse into ruin; to fail in a sudden, disastrous way.
The speculative venture smashed within a year of its launch.
"What would have become of the gems had the bank smashed?" asked Marie in a timid and rather tearful voice, for it was a terrible thought to think that her dreams might dissolve into thin air.
1910, Fergus Hume, The Peacock of Jewels
Note
Here the business does the breaking, and nobody breaks it: in archaic slang a bank or firm simply smashes. In Fergus Hume's The Peacock of Jewels (1910), Marie asks tearfully what would have become of the gems 'had the bank smashed?' It is intransitive and means the same as go to smash, the idiom built on the old noun for destruction.
19
verbobsoleteIrelandUK
To pass counterfeit money; to put forged currency into circulation as though it were genuine.
Note
Old British and Irish slang, long obsolete, in which the offense was not making false money but spending it. Nothing gets broken in this sense. A modern reader who meets it in older writing about crime should picture a coin slipped across a counter, not violence.

Practice

Can you tell the meanings of smash apart? Answer 3 quick questions from this page, or write your own sentence and AI will check it.

Origin

The origin is uncertain, but it is probably onomatopoeic, imitating a sound. It may be compared with Swedish smask ("to smack with the lips") and Danish smaske ("to smack with the lips").