Search the Dictionary

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

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…

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

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

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.]

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…

the foot of the rampart and the scarp of the ditch, serving to receive the earth that may crumble off or be washed down, and prevent its falling into the ditch. Wilhelm.

A collar, leash, or halter used to restrain a dog in pursuing game. Markham. Trash ice, crumbled ice mixed with water.