Crumple

//ˈkɹʌmpəl// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A crease, wrinkle, or irregular fold.
Verb
  1. 1
    To rumple; to press into wrinkles by crushing together. transitive

    "He crumpled the note and threw it away."

  2. 2
    become wrinkled or crumpled or creased wordnet
  3. 3
    To cause to collapse. transitive

    "He crumpled the car's body panels when he backed into a post."

  4. 4
    to gather something into small wrinkles or folds wordnet
  5. 5
    To become wrinkled. intransitive

    "The car's body panels crumpled when they hit the post."

Show 3 more definitions
  1. 6
    fold or collapse wordnet
  2. 7
    To collapse; to surrender. figuratively, intransitive

    "The team's defensive strategy crumpled."

  3. 8
    fall apart wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
bucklebucklecollapsepuckerrumplebend

Antonyms

All antonyms
press

Example

More examples

"You're not a serious mathematician unless you crumple up a piece of paper in frustration every twenty minutes, look off into space, and appear to be questioning your very existence."

Etymology

From Middle English crumplen, cromplen, frequentative of Middle English crumpen (“to curl up, crump”), from Old English crump (“bent, crooked”). Equivalent to crump + -le.

Related phrases

crumple upcrumple zone

More for "crumple"

SynonymsSentencesPronunciationTranslate

Next best steps

Find stronger synonymsSee usage examplesCheck pronunciationBrowse writing guides

Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.