(v. t.) To break into small pieces; to cause to fall in pieces.
(v. i.) To fall into small pieces; to break or part into small fragments; hence, to fall to decay or ruin; to become disintegrated; to perish.
Example Sentences:
(1) The breathtaking response of the geosphere as the great ice sheets crumbled might be considered as providing little more than an intriguing insight into the prehistoric workings of our world, were it not for the fact that our planet is once again in the throes an extraordinary climatic transformation – this time brought about by human activities.
(2) Many of Long’s pieces are fragile and fleeting: a stripe of un-mown grass in an otherwise close cropped lawn at the Henry Moore foundation , a misty circle in Scotland that lasted only until the day warmed up, a stripe of green grass left by plucking daisies, or paintings in wet mud that dry out and crumble.
(3) Now the fabric of the school is visibly crumbling: roofs leak and skylights are broken; the estimated cost of repairs is £1m.
(4) And yet I sense a crumbling of the monumental Boris facade, the great artificial construct designed to make him prime minister, for reasons I have never understood.
(5) In between, the small downtown area is a shell of empty, crumbling shop fronts and derelict, boarded-up houses interspersed with the odd bar, ramshackle residential street and tracts of wasteland.
(6) They watch her life crumble as she's subjected to further turmoil through pregnancy or marital crisis.
(7) Yet we invest less in sport than other developed countries - £36 per head compared to France's £109 - and our facilities are ageing and crumbling.
(8) Diane James offers crumbling Ukip a safe pair of hands Read more James said she had not yet formalised her nomination as leader, meaning that she had never formally taken over from her predecessor, Nigel Farage, following her landslide election on 16 September.
(9) 2 Crumble the blue cheese into the porridge and then cook on a medium heat, stirring continuously with a wooden spoon until it thickens to your liking.
(10) Serves 4 100g butter, at room temperature 150g flour 50g ground almonds 30g suet 1 egg yolk 50g cooked chestnuts, chopped 5 tbsp chopped fresh thyme Salt and black pepper For the leeks 1kg leeks, trimmed 100g butter Salt and pepper 200ml double cream 1 tsp nutmeg 1 To make the crumble topping, work the butter into the flour until it resembles coarse breadcrumbs, then add the ground almonds and suet.
(11) "We inherited a crumbling infrastructure, starved of funding; Victorian schools with rundown gyms, and thousands of playing fields sold off," Sutcliffe said.
(12) 400g cooked or tinned butterbeans 1 tsp ground cumin 10ml lemon juice ¼ clove garlic, peeled and finely minced 1 small handful picked flat-leaf parsley, finely chopped 1 tbsp plain flour (gluten-free flour also works fine) 1 tsp salt 1 egg 1 spring onion, trimmed and finely sliced 50g breadcrumbs 100g feta (or other crumbly goat's or sheep's cheese) Put the butterbeans, cumin, lemon juice, garlic, parsley, flour, salt and egg in a food processor and blitz to a coarse paste: you don't want the mix fully pureed, otherwise the burgers will be too wet and will fall apart on the grill.
(13) Fortune Magazine predicted that “ the apparent M-Pesa monopoly may be set to crumble ”, indicating that the new licensing regime could open up the market long dominated by Safaricom.
(14) Supporters say Luzhkov transformed Moscow from a crumbling communist shell into a vibrant metropolis.
(15) Ruth Joseph and Sarah Nathan's crumbly little almond and lemon tarts are the perfect example of its charms, to my mind – not too sweet, not too sour, just intensely, deliciously zesty.
(16) When President Obama stands up and says - as he did when he addressed the nation in February 2011 about Libya - that "the United States will continue to stand up for freedom, stand up for justice, and stand up for the dignity of all people", it should trigger nothing but a scornful fit of laughter, not credulous support (by the way, not that anyone much cares any more, but here's what is happening after the Grand Success of the Libya Intervention: "Tribal and historical loyalties still run deep in Libya, which is struggling to maintain central government control in a country where armed militia wield real power and meaningful systems of law and justice are lacking after the crumbling of Gaddafi's eccentric personal rule").
(17) At the beginning, David Cameron spoke respectfully of "President Mubarak" and the "Egyptian government"; by this weekend, the prime minister is using the much more pejorative "regime" to describe the crumbling autocracy.
(18) He begins describing the crumbling wall of mud that enveloped him, the image of his young daughter propelling him to fight to the surface and take his first breath of air.
(19) My partner and I withstood the onslaught, but eventually the relationship crumbled under the pressure.
(20) Pour the chopped tomatoes over the peaches and onions, add chopped coriander, cumin and a finely crumbled stock cube and stir in.
Ruin
Definition:
(n.) The act of falling or tumbling down; fall.
(n.) Such a change of anything as destroys it, or entirely defeats its object, or unfits it for use; destruction; overthrow; as, the ruin of a ship or an army; the ruin of a constitution or a government; the ruin of health or hopes.
(n.) That which is fallen down and become worthless from injury or decay; as, his mind is a ruin; especially, in the plural, the remains of a destroyed, dilapidated, or desolate house, fortress, city, or the like.
(n.) The state of being dcayed, or of having become ruined or worthless; as, to be in ruins; to go to ruin.
(n.) That which promotes injury, decay, or destruction.
(n.) To bring to ruin; to cause to fall to pieces and decay; to make to perish; to bring to destruction; to bring to poverty or bankruptcy; to impair seriously; to damage essentially; to overthrow.
(v. i.) To fall to ruins; to go to ruin; to become decayed or dilapidated; to perish.
Example Sentences:
(1) Because they generally have to be positioned on hills to get the maximum benefits of the wind, some complain that they ruin the landscape.
(2) Even regional allies disagree with American priorities about Isis, Biddle noted, which is why Turkey continues to bomb Kurds and Saudi Arabia and the UAE arm groups around the region , most notably in Syria but also in the ruins of Yemen .
(3) It trickled back to me somehow that, ‘Goddammit, Johnny Depp’s ruining the film!
(4) A procedure is described for the rapid determination of putrascine, spermine and spermidine in ruine and whole blood.
(5) Hitchcock's attempts to keep Hedren in a gilded cage arguably ruined her career.
(6) Conference, five years ago this motion would have ruined my life.
(7) But illegal action will only ruin any chance of dialogue with Tehran.
(8) The lid is fiddly to fit on to the cup, and smells so strongly of silicone it almost entirely ruins the taste of the coffee if you don’t remove it.
(9) In Niki Savva’s book The Road to Ruin: How Tony Abbott and Peta Credlin Destroyed Their Own Government, Credlin has even been compared to Wallis Simpson, a deeply weird analogy.
(10) "While the country is sunk in misery, families are ruined and children are growing up in poverty, this guy turns up and we pay €91m for him.
(11) Anuraj Sivarajah, online editor of the newspaper, said he was very clear who was to blame for the attacks and arson that has brought the newspaper near financial ruin.
(12) In 1995 8,000 people whose lives were ruined by the Montserrat volcano settled in Britain.
(13) They belong to the people who built Choquequirao, one of the most remote Inca settlements in the Andes, and were stashed here by the archaeologists who, over the past 20 years, have been slowly freeing the ruins from the cloud forest.
(14) Even the avuncular governor of the Irish central bank, Professor Patrick Honohan, was forced to admit that pumping up to €70bn of taxpayers' money into the ruined banks "doesn't score highly on fairness" when he announced the fifth bailout on Thursday.
(15) Three thousand cheers for Will Self ( Has English Heritage ruined Stonehenge?
(16) But Denton’s attempts to apply extreme openness to others could cost the ruin of his company.
(17) His torturers accused him of passing on to British officials information about previous beatings at the hands of state officials and other human rights abuses, to ruin diplomatic relations between the two countries, he said.
(18) As Google states, it is definitely in the company’s best interest to get its first smartglass customers to behave, as “breaking the rules or being rude will not get businesses excited about Glass and will ruin it for other Explorers”.
(19) The notion that Gleeson has lurched from one disaster to another, ruining everything from the Coen brothers' remake of True Grit to Richard Curtis's romcom About Time , seems a pretty unique interpretation of his burgeoning career as a versatile character actor.
(20) But there was scepticism over whether the more radical elements on either side would obey the ceasefire, and concern in Kiev and western capitals that the truce would effectively "freeze" the conflict and give Moscow de facto control over the disputed chunk of eastern Ukraine that has been ruined by war this summer.