as in scraping
to press or strike against or together so as to make a scraping sound
I could hear the bicycle gears crunch as I shifted the derailleur
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Recent Examples of crunching
Aussies defy their bad fortune A carbon-crunching, three-way crash on the start line of the final fleet race will dominate people’s memories of a mad Sunday, making Australia’s victory of resilience somewhat of a footnote at the end of a wacky weekend.
—
Andrew Rice, New York Times, 1 June 2026
Produced by Zakk Cervini (Bring Me the Horizon, Yungblud/Aerosmith) the song blends crunching riffs with Tankian’s unmistakably operatic panic-siren delivery.
—Spin Staff, SPIN, 29 May 2026
As the players compete, their advisors, CPAs, and other professionals are crunching the numbers.
—Kelly Phillips Erb, Forbes.com, 15 May 2026
Best not to start crunching those numbers.
—Amber Harding Outkick, FOXNews.com, 15 May 2026
Floral shops were crunching Sunday to meet demand here in North Texas.
—Dawn White, CBS News, 10 May 2026
After crunching the numbers, Thelwell says the pub serves 10,000 orders of fish and chips a year.
—Jenn Harris, Los Angeles Times, 4 May 2026
Instead, Excel eliminated their routine number-crunching tasks and freed up accountants to move into more complex advisory work.
—Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez, Fortune, 4 May 2026
Scratch him behind the ears and say Good boy over and over so the horse might tire of hearing it, but Pal never would, crunching his peppermint in sweet victory—even defeat.
—Literary Hub, 30 Apr. 2026
Andrew Rice, New York Times, 1 June 2026
Produced by Zakk Cervini (Bring Me the Horizon, Yungblud/Aerosmith) the song blends crunching riffs with Tankian’s unmistakably operatic panic-siren delivery.
—Spin Staff, SPIN, 29 May 2026
As the players compete, their advisors, CPAs, and other professionals are crunching the numbers.
—Kelly Phillips Erb, Forbes.com, 15 May 2026
Best not to start crunching those numbers.
—Amber Harding Outkick, FOXNews.com, 15 May 2026
Floral shops were crunching Sunday to meet demand here in North Texas.
—Dawn White, CBS News, 10 May 2026
After crunching the numbers, Thelwell says the pub serves 10,000 orders of fish and chips a year.
—Jenn Harris, Los Angeles Times, 4 May 2026
Instead, Excel eliminated their routine number-crunching tasks and freed up accountants to move into more complex advisory work.
—Marco Quiroz-Gutierrez, Fortune, 4 May 2026
Scratch him behind the ears and say Good boy over and over so the horse might tire of hearing it, but Pal never would, crunching his peppermint in sweet victory—even defeat.
—Literary Hub, 30 Apr. 2026
Recent Examples of Synonyms for crunching
Verb
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Proxy services are often used for illicit or unethical purposes such as performing DDoS attacks, running botnet command-and-control servers, operating phishing operations, and scraping website content.—
Dan Goodin,
ArsTechnica,
29 May 2026
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After negotiations fell through, the network blocked Perplexity’s scraping bot from accessing its content.—
Corbin Bolies,
Variety,
28 May 2026
Verb
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The director, a graduate of the AFI conservatory, spent two summers growing up gritting his teeth at an all-boys sleepaway sports camp.—
Mia Galuppo,
HollywoodReporter,
22 Dec. 2025
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Bob Donnan / Imagn Images North Carolina and head coach Bill Belichick picked up a second straight ACC win on Saturday, gritting to a 20-15 victory over Stanford in Chapel Hill.—
Justin Williams,
New York Times,
9 Nov. 2025
Verb
-
Use a dry cloth and gentle pressure to remove buildup without scratching delicate surfaces.—
Jamie Cuccinelli,
Martha Stewart,
27 May 2026
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Spark will monitor and organize Gmail, complete complex tasks, and manage workflows across apps – and that’s just scratching the surface.—
Gene Marks,
Forbes.com,
24 May 2026
Cite this Entry
“Crunching.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/crunching. Accessed 7 Jun. 2026.
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