[f. CRASH v.]
1. The loud and sudden sound as of a hard body or number of bodies broken by violent percussion, as by being dashed to the ground or against each other; also transferred to the sound of thunder, loud music, etc. (It is often impossible to separate the sound from the action as exemplified in sense 2.)
1580. Baret, Alv., C 1575. A crash, the noise of a thing that is broken, fragor.
1602. Shaks., Ham., II. ii. 498. Senselesse Illium … Stoopes to his Bace, and with a hideous crash Takes prisoner Pyrrhus eare.
1802. Mar. Edgeworth, Moral T. (1816), I. xv. 120. The windows were … demolished with a terrible crash.
1818. Mrs. Shelley, Frankenst., vi. The thunder burst with a terrific crash.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. § 2. 12. The echos of the first crash.
2. The breaking to pieces of any heavy hard body or bodies by violent percussion; the shock of such bodies striking and smashing each other.
17[?]. Pope, Wks., 1886, X. 263. The decay of beauty and the crash of worlds. [But cf. CRUSH sb.] Ibid. (1718), Iliad, XVI. 928. The whole forest in one crash descends.
1837. Carlyle, Fr. Rev., I. II. i. The oak … when with far-sounding crash it falls.
b. fig. The action of falling to ruin suddenly and violently; spec. sudden collapse or failure of a financial undertaking, or of mercantile credit generally.
1817. Coleridge, Lay Serm., ii. (Bohn), 424. A rapid series of explosions (in mercantile language, a crash), and a consequent precipitation of the general system.
1848. Macaulay, Hist. Eng., II. 663. With what a crash … would the whole vast fabric of society have fallen!
1889. R. Giffen, Case Agst. Bimetallism (1892), 118. At the cost of a financial crash to which the world has yet seen no parallel.
1890. Spectator, 12 July, 38/1. A great crash is expected in South America. Both in the Argentine Republic and Uruguay, everybody has been over-speculating.
† 3. A bout of revelry, amusement, fighting, etc.; a short spell, spurt. Obs.
1549. Chaloner, Erasmus on Folly, N ij b. To recreate theim selves with sportyng tales a crashe.
c. 1575. Fulke, Confut. Purg. (1577), 40. But first he must rayle a crash at the forsaken Protestantes.
1591. R. Turnbull, Exp. St. James, 75. They haue a spirt, a crash, a fit at the worde, and leaue off.
a. 1652. Brome, New Acad., III. i. Come, Gentlemen, shall we have a crash at cards?
1767. W. Hanbury, Charities Ch. Langton, 168. We could not have a friendly crash, but we must be troubled with one or more of those fellows [musical performers] to fill up the parts.
