From Longman Dictionary of Contemporary Englishfall to pieces/bitsfall to pieces/bitsa) BREAKto break into many pieces SYN fall apart The book had been well used and finally fell to pieces. b) STOP HAPPENINGif something such as a plan or a relationship falls to pieces, it stops working properly SYN fall apart The family is falling to pieces. → fall
Examples from the Corpus
fall to pieces/bits• After he left, I fell to pieces.• As a result, now that the autumn rains were here, it was already showing signs of falling to pieces.• Being a super-duper well-'ard off-road jobbie, your machine can take a fair amount of punishment before falling to bits.• He hated playing agony aunt but he couldn't afford to have Hirschfeldt falling to pieces.• The media seemed to be willing the marriage to fall to pieces.• There's a difference between consciously colouring a passage and not being able to control a voice that is falling to bits.• The Soviet Union is falling to pieces; a bloody struggle for those pieces can not be ruled out.• Supposing the union fell to pieces, these were the fracture lines along which it would naturally break. 