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lly, a small piece of bread or other food, broken or cut off. Desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's table. Luke xvi. 21.

A cloth to be laid under a dining table to receive falling fragments, and keep the carpet or floor clean. [Written also crumcloth.]

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

EAsily crumbled; friable; brittle. "The crumbly soil." Hawthorne.

A sauce (such as egg and bread crumbs) used for covering bits of meat, small birds, or fish, strung on skewers for frying.

ites the ground. The last screw of the rack having been turned so often that its purchase crumbled, . . . it turned and turned with nothing to bite. Dickens. To bite the dust, To bite the ground, to fall in the agonies of death; as, he made his enemy bite the dust. -- To bite in (Etching), to corrode or eat into metal…

Resembling, or of the nature of, brash, or broken fragments; broken; crumbly.

To cover with bread crumbs, preparatory to cooking; as, breaded cutlets.

rs, and breast. Ambition sighed: she found it vain to trust The faithless column, and the crumbling bust. Pope.

Easily crumbled; friable; brittle. [R.] Now the fowler . . . treads the crimp earth. J. Philips.

Capable of being crumbed or broken into small pieces.

Full of crumb or crumbs.

The hard exterior or surface of bread, in distinction from the soft part or crumb; or a piece of bread grown dry or hard.

other matter, so comminuted that they may be raised and wafted by the wind; that which is crumbled too minute portions; fine powder; as, clouds of dust; bone dust. Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return. Gen. iii. 19. Stop! -- for thy tread is on an empire's dust. Byron.

[friabilis, fr. friare to rub, break, or crumble into small pieces, cf. fricare to rub, E. fray. cf. F. friable.) Easily crumbled, pulverized, or reduced to powder. "Friable ground." Evelyn. "Soft and friable texture." Paley. -- Fri'a-ble-ness, n.

ous silicate of alumina and lime. Exposed to the air, it loses water, becomes opaque, and crumbles. [Written also laumonite.]

Crumbling, soft, friable earth; esp., earth containing the remains or constituents of organic matter, and suited to the growth of plants; soil.

To crumble into small particles; to turn to dust by natural decay; to lose form, or waste away, by a gradual separation of the component particles, without the presence of water; to crumble away. The moldering of earth in frosts and sun. Bacon. When statues molder, and when arches fall. Prior. If he had sat still, the…

A crumb or little piece of concecrated host.

Easily crumbling to pieces; friable; loose; as, a powdery spar.