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collapse

[kuh-laps]

Example Sentences Origin

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verb (used without object)

to fall or cave in; crumble suddenly: The roof collapsed and buried the crowd.

to be made so that sections or parts can be folded up, as for convenient storage: This bridge table collapses.

to break down; come to nothing; fail: Despite all their efforts the peace talks collapsed.

to fall unconscious or as if unconscious or physically depleted, as from a stroke, heart attack, disease, or exhaustion.

Pathology.

to sink into extreme weakness.

(of lungs) to come into an airless state.

verb (used with object)

to cause to collapse: He collapsed the table easily.

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to bark; yelp.

to spend time idly; loaf.

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noun

a falling in or together: Three miners were trapped by the collapse of the tunnel roof.

a sudden, complete failure; breakdown: The bribery scandal brought about the complete collapse of his industrial empire.

Origin:
1725–35; < Latin collāpsus (past participle of collābī to fall, fall in ruins), equivalent to col- col-¹ + lāp-, variant stem of lābī to fall + -sus, variant of -tus past participle ending

Related forms

pre·col·lapse, verb, -lapsed, -laps·ing.

un·col·lapsed, adjective

Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2012.
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Link To collapse

Example Sentences

If you take government out of the equation, they collapse.

The collapse in new-vehicle demand has traumatised parts-makers.

Two scientists have linked climate variations to the collapse of societies around the globe.

EXPAND

If you take government out of the equation, they collapse.

The collapse in new-vehicle demand has traumatised parts-makers.

Two scientists have linked climate variations to the collapse of societies around the globe.

The cod's own prey, forage fishes, thrived following the fishery collapse.

Now the rains turn the roofs to sludge, which causes buildings to collapse.

Infested plants show leaf wilt, followed by total collapse.

Colony collapse disorder is bad news for anyone who eats.

But another attention-raising factor was present, too: the rarity of an academic collapse.

Even if he did, printing money to keep repaying the domestic debt might not avoid financial collapse.

China's economic boom has, in a ruthless symmetry, fueled an equal and opposite environmental collapse.

Some astronomers think that a gravitational or magnetic disturbance causes the nebula to collapse.

We still don't understand colony collapse disorder.

Chickens and children can now lounge underneath the arbor, free from fears of another collapse.

If you are successful, the bridge doesn't collapse from poor design and survives its load.

Iceland's banking collapse is the biggest, relative to the size of an economy, that any country has ever suffered.

He compared the heating inside the bubble at the time of collapse to that of a bicycle pump when it's being used to pump a tire.

We have the genetic footprint of colony collapse disorder, and we're trying to figure out what it is.

The marine fishery is in steep decline or even collapse.

Now it seems a whole web of problems may be causing what's known as colony collapse disorder.

Champions of the world's poor are celebrating the collapse of global trade talks.

Many reefs have been reduced to rubble, a collapse that has deprived fish of food and shelter.

Collapse of the lungs forces air away from the alveoli, where gas exchange between the lungs and blood occurs.

Following the collapse of the ballyhooed solar firm, these are dark times for renewable energy.

Pyroclastic flows generated in the collapse have been heading down valleys on the volcano out over the sea.

The tension between these approaches was the immediate cause of this week's collapse.

The attack must have come from warmer oceans that undermined floating ice, triggering a partial collapse of the ice sheet.

They never uniformly collapse neatly on themselves in non-planned situations.

Eventually they collapse with remaining talent going elsewhere to join another active center.

The wine rack is strong enough that it will not collapse.

Giuliani heads outside to escape possible building collapse.

In its final stage, the sun will collapse into a white dwarf.

It's been three years since the collapse of the last economic bubble, so it's probably time to start worrying about the next one.

The profit motive that has driven the world's sheries to near collapse could also save them.

The basic idea is that there does, in fact, exist a force that could halt the collapse of a star when all else fails.

The economic collapse was caused by conformity to a flawed view of economics.

When stars a few times heavier than our own sun run out of fuel, they collapse into ultradense pulsars.

Researchers zero in on the culprits behind colony collapse disorder.

Bananas, cacao and bee-pollinated crops are all threatened with collapse in part because of their monoculture management.

The economy's collapse has caught up with the billion-dollar campaign.

These risks are of course still present, but a more pervasive danger is that states will simply collapse.

The collapse is filmed, helping it to become one of the more conspicuous.

Leaving one out would collapse the notion of universal knowledge.

Astrophysicists try to explain them as being the result of the collapse of huge clouds of gas.

Although theories abound, no smoking gun has emerged and the cause of colony collapse disorder remains a mystery.

The collapse occurred at a particularly inopportune time: move-in week at the campus dormitories.

In addition, they found evidence that ice-sheet collapse and methane release preceded a rise in global sea levels.

The biggest threat to global stability is the potential for food crises in poor countries to cause government collapse.

On land, the argument went, these dinosaurs would collapse under their own weight.

The gel does not collapse during launch, and it contains all the food and water the ants need.

The decades-long systemic collapse of the tenure-track job.

The result was a round of reciprocal tariff hikes elsewhere, and a disastrous collapse in international trade.

The rise, glory, and collapse of an ancient civilization.

Rather, they'd either collapse into the crumple box or bend upward.

The controls have prevented the collapse of the financial system.

These bubbles grow and collapse in a process called cavitation, which liquefies tissue.

Geologists preliminarily think this is likely related to collapse of salt domes in the subsurface.

The apparent collapse is largely down to something called trade compression.

Stars and planets form in the collapse of huge clouds of interstellar gas and.

If this were caused by an earthquake or structural defect the walls would collapse in, not get blown out.

The decade after the collapse of communism was notable for the absence of any official ideology.

The presence of transgenic fish also increases the likelihood of population collapse when food is in short supply.

Global economies are in the beginning of a major collapse.

Slowly pulling the mesh from the bath made it collapse into a high-density ribbon.

The novel begins after the collapse of civilization by an event that is not immediately identified.

All things in the universe want to collapse and recoil and expand unless acted upon by another force.

COLLAPSE

Collins

World English Dictionary

collapse (kəˈlæps)

—vb
1.	(intr) to fall down or cave in suddenly: the whole building collapsed
2.	(intr) to fail completely: his story collapsed on investigation
3.	(intr) to break down or fall down from lack of strength
4.	to fold (furniture, etc) compactly or (of furniture, etc) to be designed to fold compactly

—n
5.	the act or instance of suddenly falling down, caving in, or crumbling
6.	a sudden failure or breakdown

[C18: from Latin collāpsus, from collābī to fall in ruins, from lābī to fall]

col'lapsible

—*adj*

col'lapsable

—*adj*

collapsi'bility

—n

collapsability

—n

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10th Edition
2009 © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins
Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009
Cite This Source

Etymonline

Word Origin & History

collapse

1732, from L. collapsus, pp. of collabi "fall together," from com- "together" + labi "to fall, slip." The pp. collapsed is attested from 1609, from L. collapsus, and this seems to have suggested the verb.

American Heritage

Medical Dictionary

collapse col·lapse (kə-lāps')
v. col·lapsed, col·laps·ing, col·laps·es

To break down suddenly in strength or health and thereby fall into a condition of extreme prostration.
To fall together or inward suddenly.

A condition of extreme prostration.
A falling together of the walls of a structure.
The failure of a physical system.

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"Ah! you can die, the world can collapse, I have lost the one I love. I must now live in this terrible solitude where memory is torture."

-Albert Camus

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