crush

From Middle English cruschen (“to crush, smash, squeeze, squash”), from Old French croissir (“to crush”), from Late Latin *crusciō (“to brush”), from Frankish *krustijan (“to crush, squeeze, squash”), from Proto-Germanic *kreustaną (“to crush, grind, strike, smash”).

Akin to Middle Dutch crosen (“to bruise, crush”), Middle Low German krossen, krȫsen (“to break, shatter”), Old Swedish krusa (“to crush”), Swedish krysta (“to squeeze”), Danish kryste (“to squash”), Icelandic kreista (“to squeeze, squash”), Faroese kroysta (“to squeeze”), Gothic 𐌺𐍂𐌹𐌿𐍃𐍄𐌰𐌽 (kriustan, “to gnash”).

• IPA^(key): /kɹʌʃ/

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• Audio (AU)

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• Rhymes: -ʌʃ

crush (countable and uncountable, plural crushes)

1. A violent collision or compression; a crash; destruction; ruin.
   • 1921, Alexis Thomson, Alexander Miles, Manual of Surgery:

     The more highly the injured part is endowed with sensory nerves the more marked is the shock; a crush of the hand, for example, is attended with a more intense degree of shock than a correspondingly severe crush of the foot

2. Violent pressure, as of a moving crowd.
3. A violent crowding.
4. A crowd that produces uncomfortable pressure.

   a crush at a reception

5. (slang) A group or gang.
   • 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 302:

     Then there was another set who called themselves the "Ragged Thirteen"; and the account says "they looked it." And, like most diggers, this "crush," to quote my authority, could handle the cards a bit.

6. A crowd control barrier.
7. A drink made by squeezing the juice out of fruit.
   • 1958, Anthony Burgess, The Enemy in the Blanket (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 292:

     "Look," said Crabbe, warm orange crush in his hand.

8. (informal) An infatuation with somebody one is not dating.

   I've had a huge crush on her since we met many years ago.

   • 2019, Emma Lea, A Royal Enticement:

     And I needed to get my schoolgirl crush under control. There was no way Brín felt anything anywhere near what I felt for him. He saw me as a friend.

   1. (informal, by extension) The human object of such infatuation or affection.
      • 2004, Chris Wallace, Character: Profiles in Presidential Courage:

        It had taken nine years from the evening that Truman first showed up with a pie plate at her mother's door, but his dogged perseverance eventually won him the hand of his boyhood Sunday school crush.

9. A standing stock or cage with movable sides used to restrain livestock for safe handling.
10. (dated) A party or festive function.
    • 1891, Oscar Wilde, chapter 1, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, London, New York, N.Y., Melbourne, Vic.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC:

      Two months ago I went to a crush at Lady Brandon's.

11. (Australia) The process of crushing cane to remove the raw sugar, or the season when this process takes place.
12. (television, uncountable) The situation where certain colors are so similar as to be hard to distinguish, either as a deliberate effect or as a limitation of a display.

    black crush; white crush

13. (uncountable, sexuality) A paraphilia involving arousal from seeing things destroyed by crushing.
    • 2000, Katharine Gates, Deviant Desires: Incredibly Strange Sex, page 137:

      Just as they say that marijuana leads to harder drugs, Gallegly is claiming that crush is a "gateway fetish"—a term I've never heard before. He claims that if someone starts with bugs they'll end up escalating to human babies in no time.

• (infatuation): squish

crush (third-person singular simple present crushes, present participle crushing, simple past and past participle crushed)

1. To press between two hard objects; to squeeze so as to alter the natural shape or integrity, or to force together into a mass.

   to crush grapes

   • 1769, Benjamin Blayney, King James Bible, Leviticus 22:24:

     Ye shall not offer unto the Lord that which is bruised, or crushed, or broken, or cut

2. To reduce to fine particles by pounding or grinding.

   Synonym: comminute

   to crush quartz

   • 1912 October, Edgar Rice Burroughs, “Tarzan of the Apes”, in The All-Story, New York, N.Y.: Frank A. Munsey Co., →OCLC; republished as chapter 1, in Tarzan of the Apes, New York, N.Y.: A. L. Burt Company, 1914 June, →OCLC:

     With a wild scream he was upon her, tearing a great piece from her side with his mighty teeth, and striking her viciously upon her head and shoulders with a broken tree limb until her skull was crushed to a jelly.

3. (figurative) To overwhelm by pressure or weight.

   After the corruption scandal, the opposition crushed the ruling party in the elections

   • 1950 September 1, Harry S. Truman, 2:02 from the start, in MP72-73 Korea and World Peace: President Truman Reports to the People‎, Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum, National Archives Identifier: 595162:

     We believe the invasion has reached its peak. The task remaining is to crush it. Our men are confident, the United Nations command is confident, that it will be crushed.

   • 2011 November 11, Rory Houston, “Estonia 0-4 Republic of Ireland”, in RTE Sport‎:

     A stunning performance from the Republic of Ireland all but sealed progress to Euro 2012 as they crushed nine-man Estonia 4-0 in the first leg of the qualifying play-off tie in A Le Coq Arena in Tallinn.

4. (figurative, colloquial) To do impressively well at (sports events; performances; interviews; etc.).

   They had a gig recently at Madison Square—totally crushed it!

5. To oppress or grievously burden.
6. To overcome completely; to subdue totally.

   The sultan's black guard crushed every resistance bloodily.

   • 1814, Sir Walter Scott, Waverley:

     the prospect of the Duke's speedily overtaking and crushing the rebels

7. (intransitive) To be or become broken down or in, or pressed into a smaller volume or area, by external weight or force.

   an eggshell crushes easily

8. (intransitive, transitive) To feel infatuation or unrequited love.

   She's crushing on him.

   • 2000, “Aaron’s Party (Come Get It)”, performed by Aaron Carter:

     Then walked in / The girl I'm crushin' / And the kid spilled juice / On my Mom's new cushion

   • 2011, May'lon Miranda, Love Is Blind, →ISBN, page 58:

     ... I could just let loose and be myself no holding back you know we just where to young kids in love, lust, crushing whatever you wanted to call it but we where living it up having fun when we where together the rest of the world didn't exist ...

   • 2013, Sarra Manning, Diary of a Crush: Kiss and Make Up, →ISBN:

     And the one subject that I get an A plus in every time, is the ancient art of crushing. I crush, therefore I am. I've decided to share the benefit of my wisdom and after months of hopelessly lusting after Dylan, I've REALISED that there are twelve degrees of crushing from the slightly embarrassing things most girls will do to catch the eye of the heir to their heart, to the verging on ridiculous stunts you pull when you're in the grip of a passion that renders you powerless.

   • 2013, Shozan Jack Haubner, Zen Confidential: Confessions of a Wayward Monk, →ISBN, page 130:

     "I respect your wiring," he explained, "but I'm crushing on you. And when I crush, I crush hard." He thought it would be better if we stopped seeing each other for a while.

9. (film, television) To give a compressed or foreshortened appearance to.
   • 2003, Michel Chion, The Films of Jacques Tati, page 78:

     He frames his subject in distant close-ups (we feel the distance, due mostly to the crushed perspective brought about by the telephoto lens).

   • 2010, Birgit Bräuchler, John Postill, Theorising Media and Practice, page 319:

     They realise that trajectories, space expansion and crushing are different with different lenses, whether wide angle or telephoto, and that actors' eyelines will be altered.

10. (transitive, television) To make certain colors so similar as to be hard to distinguish, either as a deliberate effect or as a limitation of a display.

    My old TV set crushes the blacks when the brightness is lowered.

• (trans, to squeeze into a permanent new shape) squash
• (to pound or grind into fine particles) pulverize, pulverise
• (to overwhelm) overtake
• (to impress at) ace; slay at, kill

• “crush”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.

• Rusch, Schur, churs

Borrowed from English crush.

crush m or f (invariable)

1. (slang) crush
   1. infatuation with somebody one is not dating

      Synonyms: cotta, sbandata, infatuazione

      avere un crush per qualcuno ― to have a crush on someone

   2. human object of an infatuation

      La mia crush si veste bene.

      My [female] crush dresses well.

Unadapted borrowing from English crush, from Middle English cruschen, from Old French croissir, from Late Latin *crusciō, from Frankish *krostjan.

• IPA^(key): /kraʂ/

• Audio

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• Rhymes: -aʂ
• Syllabification: crush

crush m pers

1. (slang) crush (love interest)

• crush in Polish dictionaries at PWN

Unadapted borrowing from English crush.

crush m or f or m or f by sense (plural crushes or crush)

1. (colloquial) crush (an infatuation with somebody one is not dating)

   Synonym: paixoneta

Unadapted borrowing from English crush.

• IPA^(key): /ˈkɾuʃ/ [ˈkɾuʃ]
  • Rhymes: -uʃ
  • Syllabification: crush
• IPA^(key): /ˈkɾaʃ/ [ˈkɾaʃ]
  • Rhymes: -aʃ

crush m (plural crushes)

1. (slang) crush (an infatuation with somebody one is not dating)

According to Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) prescriptions, unadapted foreign words should be written in italics in a text printed in roman type, and vice versa, and in quotation marks in a manuscript text or when italics are not available. In practice, this RAE prescription is not always followed.