crunch

verb crunches · crunching · crunched

1. To crush something, especially food, with a noisy crackling sound. When I came home, Susan was watching TV with her feet up on the couch, crunching a piece of celery.
2. To be crushed with a noisy crackling sound. Beetles crunched beneath the men's heavy boots as they worked.
3. slang To calculate or otherwise process (e.g. to crunch numbers: to perform mathematical calculations). Presumably from the sound made by mechanical calculators. That metadata makes it much easier for the search engine to crunch the data for queries.
4. To grind or press with violence and noise. The sound of our vessel crunching her way through the new ice is not easy to be described.
5. To emit a grinding or crunching noise. There were sounds in the air above his head – sounds of the crunching and rattling of the loose, smooth stones as his neighbors moved about[…]
6. transitive To cause the gears to emit a crunching sound by releasing the clutch before the gears are properly synchronised.
7. transitive To compress (data) using a particular algorithm, so that it can be restored by decrunching. PackIt will not crunch executables, unless told to do so.
8. slang, transitive To make employees work overtime in order to meet a deadline in the development of a project.

noun crunches

1. Crunchiness. I like the crunch of those crackers.
2. A small piece created by crushing; a piece of material with a friable or crunchy texture. Smear the peanut butter, fluff, and a bit of the nutella all over, even to the very edge of the wrap. Sprinkle the crunches on top and then start rolling from one of the non-trimmed edges
3. A dessert consisting of a crunchy topping with fruit underneath.

   Similar: crisp, crumble

4. A critical moment or event. It always pains me (slightly) when a flaming young radical like Neil Miller turns out when the crunch comes to be such an ardent defender of the status quo.
5. A problem that leads to a crisis. The crunch is characterized by extremely depressed liquidity and deteriorated balance sheet positions for households, corporations, and financial institutions[…]
6. slang The overtime work required to catch up and finish a project, usually in the final weeks of development before release.
7. slang A shortage. But a supply crunch, which is already affecting the drive, could slow it down further.
8. A form of abdominal exercise, based on a sit-up but in which the lower back remains in contact with the floor. But even I draw the line at “doing crunches” in designer clothes. Fashion sneakers are for swanking around the shops, not for running in. And so, like everyone else, I wear grotty old tracksuits earmarked for Oxfam, and tragic free festival T-shirts that give away my age.
9. US The symbol #.
10. Moderate distortion.

Similar: hashtag, number sign, pound sign