crush
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: ipa: /kɹʌʃ/
rhymes: -ʌʃ
Forms: form: crushes
Etymology: From Middle English cruschen (“to crush, smash, squeeze, squash”), from Old French croissir (“to crush”), from Late Latin *crusciō (“to crush”), from Frankish *krustijan (“to crush, squeeze, squash”), from Proto-Germanic *kreustaną (“to crush, grind, strike, smash”).
Cognate with Middle Low German tôkrosten (“to crush, shatter”), Swedish krysta (“to squeeze”), Danish kryste (“to squash”), Icelandic kreista (“to squeeze, squash”), Faroese kroysta (“to squeeze”), Gothic 𐌺𐍂𐌹𐌿𐍃𐍄𐌰𐌽 (kriustan, “to gnash”). Akin also to Middle Dutch crosen (“to bruise, crush”), Middle Low German krossen, krö̂sen, tôkrö̂sen (“to break, shatter”), Old Swedish krusa (“to crush”).
Senses: examples: text: 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
ref: 1921, Alexis Thomson, Alexander Miles, Manual of Surgery:
glosses: A violent collision or compression; a crash; destruction; ruin.
glosses: Violent pressure, as of a moving crowd.
glosses: A violent crowding.
examples: text: a crush at a reception
glosses: A crowd that produces uncomfortable pressure.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 1887, Harriet W. Daly, Digging, Squatting, and Pioneering Life in the Northern Territory of South Australia, page 302:
glosses: A group or gang.
glosses: A crowd control barrier.
examples: text: "Look," said Crabbe, warm orange crush in his hand.
ref: 1958, Anthony Burgess, The Enemy in the Blanket (The Malayan Trilogy), published 1972, page 292:
glosses: A drink made by squeezing the juice out of fruit.
examples: text: I've had a huge crush on her since we met many years ago.
text: He took his crush out for dinner.
text: 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.
ref: 2019, Emma Lea, A Royal Enticement:
glosses: An infatuation with somebody one is not dating.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 2004, Chris Wallace, Character: Profiles in Presidential Courage:
glosses: An infatuation with somebody one is not dating.
The human object of such infatuation or affection.
glosses: A standing stock or cage with movable sides used to restrain livestock for safe handling.
examples: text: Two months ago I went to a crush at Lady Brandon's.
ref: 1891, Oscar Wilde, chapter 1, in The Picture of Dorian Gray, London; New York, N.Y.; Melbourne, Vic.: Ward Lock & Co., →OCLC:
glosses: A party or festive function.
glosses: The process of crushing cane to remove the raw sugar, or the season when this process takes place.
examples: text: black crush; white crush
topics: broadcasting
media
television
glosses: 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.
examples: text: 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.
ref: 2000, Katharine Gates, Deviant Desires: Incredibly Strange Sex, page 137:
topics: lifestyle
sexuality
glosses: A paraphilia involving arousal from seeing things destroyed by crushing.
Hyponyms: sense: infatuation
word: squish
Derived terms: cattle crush
crush barrier
crush depth
crushee
crush hat
crushlike
crush load
crush party
crush pen
crushproof
crush room
crush syndrome
crush-worthy
crushworthy
crush zone
fruit crush
girl-crush
girl crush
livestock crush
man crush
noncrush