From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishcrunchcrunch1 /krʌntʃ/ noun 1 C[singular] a noise like the sound of something being crushed The only sound was the crunch of tyres on gravel.2 [countable, singular] American EnglishMONEY a difficult situation caused by a lack of something, especially money or time Three new teachers were hired to help ease the crunch.cash/budget/financial etc crunch Cost cutting had enabled the organization to survive a previous cash crunch.3 → the crunch4 [countable] an exercise in which you lie on your back and lift your head and shoulders off the ground to make your stomach muscles strong SYN sit-up
Examples from the Corpus
crunch• First though it's rugby and crunch time in the Courage League tomorrow.• At crunch time the team really pulled together.• My footsteps made a satisfactory crunch on a gravel path and I was aware at once that the satyr's footsteps had halted.• Millions of otherwise serviceable computers today are suffering from space crunch.• While that supply crunch has eased, prices are still benefiting to some extent, traders say.• Actually, the crunch did come, and the liberals never lifted a finger to save us.• I heard the crunch of footsteps on gravel road outside.• If it comes to the crunch, going in would seem to me the lesser evil.• There was the crunch of his feet rapidly moving away over the snow and she felt her tense muscles relax.cash/budget/financial etc crunch• In the short term, next week's budget crunch is more like a toy train crash rather than the real thing.• But until the budget crunches of the early nineties, no administrator ever threatened to fire them.• The cash crunch also prevented the family from fully stocking its remaining stores.• Despite this cash crunch, Simpson may yet find a way to at least postpone payment of his debts to the plaintiffs.crunchcrunch2 verb 1 [intransitive]C to make a sound like something being crushed Their boots crunched loudly on the frozen snow.2 [intransitive always + adverb/preposition, transitive]EAT to eat hard food in a way that makes a noisecrunch on The dog was crunching on a bone.3 → crunch (the) numbers→ See Verb tableExamples from the Corpus
crunch• He drank his orange juice and crunched a half burnt piece of toast.• Jill was reading the paper, crunching a raw carrot as she read.• We walked along in silence, the snow crunching beneath our feet.• No, the sound of crunching from the hallway confirmed that Holmes was having a remote control snack.• Kids were crunching graham crackers and drinking juice.• He staggered round the rear of the couch, feet crunching in plaster, and sat down.• The Don Eusebio crunched into the Zamboanga wharf at noon, four hours behind schedule.• She popped a fragment of biscuit into her mouth and crunched it primly with her front teeth.• Miguel, crunching on a mouthful of chips, wiped the cheese from his beard.• The room was lit by a red light from the burning houses behind it as Anne crunched over broken crockery and plaster.• They crunch those numbers with their calculators and spreadsheets.• Broken window glass crunched under foot.From Longman Business Dictionarycrunchcrunch /krʌntʃ/ verb crunch (the) numbersSTATISTICSACCOUNTING to do very complicated calculations on large amounts of DATA (=information stored on a computer) in order to find out about somethingMedia buyers have to know what’s going on, not just how to crunch numbers. → see also cash crunch, credit crunch, supply crunch→ See Verb tableOrigin crunch2 (1800-1900) cranch “to crunch” ((17-19 centuries)), probably from the sound; influenced by munch 