[A recent variation of cranch, CRAUNCH, perhaps intended to express a more subdued and less obtrusive sound, perh. influenced by association with crush, munch.]
1. trans. To crush with the teeth (a thing somewhat firm and brittle); to chew or bite with a crushing noise.
1814. Suppl. Grose’s Provinc. Gloss., Crunch, Cronch, and Cranch, to crush an apple, &c. in the mouth. North.
1832. W. Irving, Alhambra, II. 161. ‘While I was quietly crunching my crust.’
1859. Kingsley, Misc. (1860), I. 202. A herd of swine crunching acorns.
b. intr. or absol.
1816. Byron, Siege Cor., xvi. Their white tusks crunch’d o’er the whiter skull.
1856. Kane, Arct. Expl., II. x. 101. Our appetites were good; and … we crunched away right merrily.
2. trans. To crush or grind under foot, wheels, etc., with the accompanying noise.
1849. C. Brontë, Shirley, ii. 24. A sound of heavy wheels crunching a stony road.
1873. Spectator, 23 Aug., 1069/1. You crunch little heaps of salt at every step.
b. intr. or absol. c. intr. for refl.
1801. Southey, Thalaba, VIII. xxii. No sound but the wild, wild wind, And the snow crunching under his feet!
1880. Blackw. Mag., April, 452. The animal’s hoofs crunch on the stones and gravel.
3. intr. To advance, or make one’s way, with crunching.
1853. Kane, Grinnell Exp., xxiii. (1856), 189. The sound of our vessel crunching her way through the ice. Ibid. (1856), Arct. Expl., I. iv. 38. Our brig went crunching through all this jewelry.
1864. Lowell, Fireside Trav., 109. As we crunched and crawled up the long gravelly hills.
Hence Crunched ppl. a., Crunching vbl. sb. and ppl. a.
1840. Lytton, Pilgr. of Rhine, xix. The crunched boughs … that strewed the soil.
1848. C. Brontë, Jane Eyre, xviii. (D.). A crunching of wheels … became audible on the wet gravel.
1890. J. W. Powell, in Century Mag., April, 916/2. Passing a rim of crunching cinder.
