Link Centre Dictionary

crumble

UK/ˈkɹʌmbəl/ US/ˈkɹʌmbəl/ fairly common

verb

1.

fall apart

  • “the building crimbled after the explosion”
  • “Negociations broke down”
Synonyms
2.

break or fall apart into fragments

  • “The cookies crumbled”
  • “The Sphinx is crumbling”
Synonyms
3.

fall into decay or ruin

  • “The unoccupied house started to decay”
Synonyms

Origin

From earlier crymble, crimble, from Middle English *crymblen, kremelen, from Old English *crymlan (“to crumble”), from *crymel (“a small crumb; crumble”), diminutive of Old English cruma (“crumb”), equivalent to crumb + -le (diminutive suffix). Compare Dutch kruimelen (“to crumble”), German Low German krömmeln (“to crumble”), German Krümel, diminutive of German Krume, German krümeln, krümmeln (“to crumble”). Alteration of vowel due to analogy with crumb.

Phrases

  • crumble up
  • crumbling skull rule
  • that's the way the cookie crumbles

Related words

Word family

Broader terms

Narrower terms

WordNet 2.1 (Princeton University). Wiktionary (CC BY-SA). CMU Pronouncing Dictionary. WordNet 2.1 Copyright Princeton University. All rights reserved. Wiktionary content is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike Licence.