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To break in pieces; to crack. [Obs.] "The pot was crased." Chaucer.

To break in pieces violently; to dash together with noise and violence. [R.] He shakt his head, and crasht his teeth for ire. Fairfax.

The noise of many things falling and breaking at once. There shall be . . . a great crashing from the hills. Zeph. i. 10.

To break into pieces; to crush; to grind to powder. See Crase. God, looking forth, will trouble all his host, And craze their chariot wheels. Milton.

To mark with lines or streaks, like, or regarded as like, waving plumes. Like as the shining sky in summer's night, . . . Is crested with lines of fiery light. Spenser.

The creaking of a door, or a noise resembling it. [Obs.] Johnson.

Brittle; friable; in a condition to break with a short, sharp fracture; as, crisp snow. The cakes at tea ate short and crisp. Goldsmith.

To break into crumbs or small pieces with the fingers; as, to crumb bread. [Written also crum.]

To break into small pieces; to cause to fall in pieces. He with his bare wand can unthread thy joints, And crumble all thy sinews. Milton.

An undulating or waving line or streak in any substance, as wood, glass, etc.; flexure; sinuosity. If the glass of the prisms . . . be without those numberless waves or curls which usually arise from the sand holes. Sir I. Newton.

To break, as by throwing or by collision; to shatter; to crust; to frustrate; to ruin. Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Ps. ii. 9. A brave vessel, . . . Dashed all to pieces. Shak. To perplex and dash Maturest counsels. Milton.

To begin to grow light in the morning; to grow light; to break, or begin to appear; as, the day dawns; the morning dawns. In the end of the Sabbath, as it began to dawn toward the first day of the week, came Mary Magdalene . . . to see the sepulcher. Matt. xxviii. 1.

A breaking or bursting forth; a violent rush or flood of waters which breaks down opposing barriers, and hurls forward and disperses blocks of stone and other débris.

To break up a camp; to move away from a camping ground, usually by night or secretly. Macaulay.

A machine for breaking open the kernels of wheat or other grain and removing the germs.

A breakfast; sometimes, also, a lunch or collation.

, and severe pains in the head and limbs, resembling those of rheumatism; -- called also breakbone fever. It occurs in India, Egypt, the West Indies, etc., is of short duration, and rarely fatal.

The opposition of nutrition; the failure of nutrition causing the breaking down of tissue.

To unbuild; to pull or tear down; to separate virulently into its constituent parts; to break up the structure and organic existence of; to demolish. But ye shall destroy their altars, break their images, and cut down their groves. Ex. xxxiv. 13.

To break or separate into parts; to deflect, or decompose by deflection, a