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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

collapse.

To break apart and fall down suddenly; to cave in.

8 characters2 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

verb/kəˈlæps/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/klæps/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation, also/kəˈlɛps/New-Zealand/kɵˈlæps/South-Asia
  1. To break apart and fall down suddenly; to cave in.

    intransitive
    The wall collapsed when it was hit by the wrecking ball.
  2. To cease to function due to a sudden breakdown; to fail suddenly and completely.

    intransitive
    Pyramid schemes tend to generate profits for a while and then collapse.
  3. To fold compactly.

    intransitive
  4. To conflate, to ignore the distinctions between.

    figuratively · transitive
  5. In a hierarchical list (such as a directory tree or table of contents), to hide the subentries of (an entry).

    transitive
  6. To suffer a batting collapse.

    intransitive
    Immediately after his wicket the team collapsed for 69.
  7. To cause something to collapse.

    transitive
    Hurry up and collapse the tent so we can get moving.
  8. To pass out and fall to the floor or ground, as from exhaustion or other illness; to faint.

    intransitive
    The exhausted singer collapsed on stage and had to be taken to the hospital.
Where this word comes from

From Latin collāpsus (past participle of collābor).

noun/kəˈlæps/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation/klæps/Canada, General-American, Received-Pronunciation, also/kəˈlɛps/New-Zealand/kɵˈlæps/South-Asia
  1. The act of collapsing.

    countable · uncountable
    She suffered a terrible collapse after slipping on the wet floor.
    in a state of nervous collapse
  2. Constant function, one-valued function (in automata theory) (in particular application causing a reset).

    countable · uncountable
  3. Ellipsis of batting collapse.

    abbreviation · alt-of · countable · ellipsis · uncountable
Where this word comes from

From Latin collāpsus (past participle of collābor).

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.