crunch

noun, verb, adjective

1 [C,usually sing.] a noise like the sound of sth firm being crushed: the crunch of feet on snow * The car drew up with a crunch of gravel. 2 (the crunch) [sing.] an important and often unpleasant situation or piece of information: The crunch came when she returned from America. * He always says he'll help but when it comes to the crunch (= when it is time for action or decision) he does nothing. * The crunch is that we can't afford to go abroad this year. 3 [C,usually sing.] (especially AmE) a situation in which there is suddenly not enough of sth, especially money: a budget / energy / housing crunch * Higher grain prices are putting a crunch on cattle feeders.

1 ~ (on sth) to crush sth noisily between your teeth when you are eating: [VN] She crunched her apple noisily. [also V] 2 to make or cause sth to make a noise like sth hard being crushed SYNSCRUNCH: [V] The snow crunched under our feet. [also VN] 3 [V+adv./prep.] to move over a surface, making a loud crushing noise: I crunched across the gravel to the front door. 4 [VN] (computing) to deal with large amounts of data very quickly: We are waiting for the results officials who are still crunching numbers. seealsoNUMBERCRUNCHING PHRASALVERBS crunch sth<->up to crush sth completely: He crunched up the empty pack and threw it out of the window. adjective [onlybeforenoun] (informal) a crunch meeting, sports game, etc. is very important and may be the last chance to succeed: Sunday's crunch game with Leeds * The Agriculture Secretary goes into a crunch meeting with senior ministers in Brussels tomorrow.