Crumble
name, noun, verb ·Common ·High school level
Definitions
- 1 A dessert of British origin containing stewed fruit topped with a crumbly mixture of fat, flour, and sugar. countable, uncountable
"blackberry and apple crumble"
- 1 To fall apart; to disintegrate. figuratively, intransitive, often
"The bread roll crumbled when I tried to slice it; it was too stale."
- 2 fall into decay or ruin wordnet
- 3 To break into crumbs. transitive
"We crumbled some bread into the water."
- 4 break or fall apart into fragments wordnet
- 5 To mix (ingredients such as flour and butter) in such a way as to form crumbs. transitive
"Using your fingers, crumble the ingredients with the fingertips, lifting in an upward motion, until the mixture is sandy and resembles large breadcrumbs."
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- 6 fall apart wordnet
- 1 A surname.
Example
More examples"The church's steeple is beginning to crumble with age."
Etymology
From earlier crymble, crimble, from Middle English *crymblen, kremelen, from Old English *crymlan (“to crumble”), from *crymel (“a small crumb; crumble”), diminutive of Old English cruma (“crumb”), equivalent to crumb + -le (diminutive suffix). Compare Dutch kruimelen (“to crumble”), German Low German krömmeln (“to crumble”), German Krümel, diminutive of German Krume, German krümeln, krümmeln (“to crumble”). Alteration of vowel due to analogy with crumb.
Related phrases
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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.