crumble Definition
crum·ble (krum′bəl)
intransitive verb
to fall to pieces; disintegrate
noun
Rare a crumb or crumbling substance
crumble Synonyms
crumble Usage Examples
Object
- edifice: There are approximately 3 shops still open in this crumbling edifice.
- ruin: From dramatic sheer cliffs to crumbling Roman ruins, Naples too, offers up a heady mix of sights.
- cube: Sprinkle in the flour and cook, stirring, for 1-2 minutes then add the tahini paste and crumbled stock cube and mix well.
- cheese: Serve the soup with a little crumbled blue cheese stir in.
- mansion: One evening after dark a young man prowled among these crumbling red mansions, ringing their bells.
- cliff: His right hand held on to a crumbling stone cliff, his left stuck out in mid-air.
Preposition: into
- dust: Defending such high taxation levels, lest the NHS crumbles into dust, has tested people's patience to the limit.
- ruin: Ten years later this gave way, and was never repaired, and eventually the Abbey crumbled into the evocative ruins we see today.
Modifying Another Word
- slowly: Charles Blakey is a young black man whose life is slowly crumbling.
- away: Over the past five months they have watched their livelihoods crumble away with the death of every cow, every sheep.
- eventually: However a series of events were to undermine this support until it eventually crumbled.
- rapidly: The tarmac rapidly crumbled into a dirt road shadowing the line of the old Central Pacific Railroad.
- soon: Those that had survived the burning torches of the clearances soon crumbled.
- easily: If the lawn's edges crumble easily, insert an edging of wood or plastic set below grass level.
Followed by an intransitive particle
away: The braille will now crumble away leaving a hole.
Used with why or when
when: The cookie was sometimes so old it would crumble away when tapped on the table.
Preposition: in
cube: Heat the Madeira crumble in the stock cube and stir well.
Preposition: under
- pressure: Can you keep your cool and win, or will you crumble under the pressure?
- weight: Were they to progress tho, they would probably crumble under the weight of disciplinary bans.
Preposition: with
custard: My mother's blackcurrant and apple crumble with custard and her steak and kidney pie.
Browse dictionary entries near crumble
- ‹ crumb
- ‹ cruller
- ‹ cruising radius
- ‹ cruiserweight
- ‹ cruiser
- ‹ cruise ship
- ‹ cruise missile
- ‹ cruise control
- ‹ cruise
- ‹ Cruikshank

