How to Use crumple in a Sentence

crumple

1 of 2 verb
  • At the sight of blood, he crumpled to the floor.
  • She crumpled the piece of paper into a ball and tossed it into the garbage can.
  • The car's fender was crumpled in the accident.
  • Now take just one of those sheets and crumple it up into a ball.
    — Rhett Allain, Wired, 11 Feb. 2022
  • Or crumple to the floor and let jagged, snotty sobs shake out of me.
    — Kaci Neves, Bon Appétit, 7 June 2021
  • Napkins were crumpled; plates were licked.
    — Helen Shaw, New Yorker, 17 Oct. 2025
  • The ground rolled and shook and crumpled and bucked and didn’t stop for more than four minutes.
    — Sarah Fallon, Wired, 19 Mar. 2020
  • Barry then crumpled the paper and threw it in a trash can.
    — Alex Riggins, Mercury News, 21 Aug. 2025
  • Barry then crumpled the paper and threw it in a trash can.
    — Alex Riggins, San Diego Union-Tribune, 20 Aug. 2025
  • Take a piece of aluminum foil and crumple it into a loose ball.
    — Madeline Buiano, Martha Stewart, 11 Jan. 2026
  • They can be crumpled into a pack, then spring back with no problem.
    — Alex Hutchinson, Outside, 14 Nov. 2025
  • The Honda’s trunk flew open, the front crumpled.
    — Mark Pazniokas, Hartford Courant, 13 Feb. 2026
  • That’s when his gun fired, and Hutchins crumpled to the wooden floor.
    — Meg James, Los Angeles Times, 22 Feb. 2024
  • But the Hogs have made a habit of playing it close and crumpling at the end.
    — Tom Murphy, Arkansas Online, 30 Sep. 2023
  • Sorters could crumple films and tell—by their sound—their polymer lattices.
    — Rebecca Altman, The Atlantic, 15 Mar. 2022
  • But sometimes she’d be caught, and her creations would be crumpled up and thrown away.
    — Dana Hedgpeth, Anchorage Daily News, 8 Aug. 2023
  • Along the coast, some homes were submerged to near their rooftops and structures crumpled.
    — Daniel Kozin, Fortune, 30 Aug. 2023
  • And then the colt seemed to come apart, crumpling to the ground and tossing Gaffalione.
    — Joe Drape, BostonGlobe.com, 2 Sep. 2023
  • Then a pair of jeans crumpled up next to a case of Corona Light.
    — Callie Holtermann, New York Times, 8 Mar. 2023
  • Diane pulled out a sheet from a stack of papers, and it was all crumpled up with the lyrics to the song.
    — Kyle Denis, Billboard, 23 Sep. 2025
  • Then, have everyone crumple up their pieces of paper and throw them in the trash.
    — Expert Panel®, Forbes, 9 Mar. 2021
  • Elana begins on the floor, crumpled beneath a pile of ruffles.
    — Jennifer Homans, The New Yorker, 30 Dec. 2019
  • My little fists always squeezed so tight the cone would crumple, all the ice cream leaking out.
    — Beatrix M. Rooney, Longreads, 9 Aug. 2019
  • The polar bear crumpled three steps from Junior’s feet.
    — Scott Haugen, Outdoor Life, 4 Feb. 2026
  • Along the coast, some homes were submerged to near their rooftops, and structures along the ocean crumpled in the surge.
    — Daniel Kozin, The Christian Science Monitor, 30 Aug. 2023
  • His mother found him, crumpled on the floor of his acupuncture studio, in a pool of blood.
    — Dateline Nbc, NBC news, 8 Oct. 2025
  • Seems like Boras could just read that out loud, then crumple up and mic-drop the paper.
    — Levi Weaver, New York Times, 2 Feb. 2026
  • First responders found the victim crumpled in the street.
    — Thomas Tracy, New York Daily News, 7 Mar. 2026
  • Greco handed Honan an open bag of chips with the top crumpled.
    — Eric Lach, New Yorker, 21 Aug. 2025
  • The front end of the car itself is also made to crumple, which extends the time of impact.
    — Christine Helms, The Conversation, 8 Aug. 2019

crumple

2 of 2 noun
  • Bullets to the head, bodies in bloody crumples, people on fire — things of that sort.
    — Dan Barry, New York Times, 4 Mar. 2020
  • Seat belts won’t prevent all fatal car crashes, but cars also come with airbags and crumple zones.
    — Ed Yong, The Atlantic, 9 Sep. 2020
  • Simply crumple and gently wipe the surface.
    — Nicole Letts, Southern Living, 25 Feb. 2026
  • The cells flex to produce initial frictional forces, then cells crumple like a car bumper on impact.
    — Gregg Ellman Tribune News Service, Star Tribune, 12 Aug. 2020
  • As Ali's children lift him into bed, his face crumples in pain and exhaustion.
    — John Wendle, Scientific American, 17 Dec. 2015
  • The man was outside, on a mobile, his voice dipping in and out amid the ambient scratch and crumple of the elements.
    — Colin Barrett, The New Yorker, 6 Dec. 2021
  • The soldiers then debate whether to take out the person wearing a pink shirt or a blue shirt right before the crack of a shot is heard and one of the figures crumples.
    — Ruth Eglash, Washington Post, 10 Apr. 2018
  • At Nation Bluff, a ranger had left a crumple of newspaper and dry kindling inside the woodstove.
    — Anchorage Daily News, 23 Feb. 2020
  • The crumple of a man unfolding a newspaper, and a pencil scribbling the answers to a crossword puzzle.
    — Andy Meek, BGR, 20 May 2022
  • Not an open sob, not an angry cry out loud, just a quiet crumple to which my brother responded with a couple of sympathetic pats on the knee.
    — Jodie Briggs, Longreads, 27 Mar. 2018
  • Compartir The sight of an airy outdoor terrace, full of orange trees and low-slung lamps and big, hearty laughs will put your mind (and shirt crumples) at ease.
    — Gemma Askham, Condé Nast Traveler, 4 Mar. 2018
  • On the stoop above, a couple argues; and a woman on one of the benches crumples dollar bills into her wallet, then lowers her face into the steam of her curry.
    — Cnt Editors, Condé Nast Traveler, 8 Oct. 2018
  • Along the Gulf Coast, this is largely due to the extraction of oil and water, which makes the ground crumple like an empty plastic bottle.
    — Matt Simon, Wired, 24 Feb. 2022
  • Weeks later, Schwab announced the purchase of one of those rivals, which had seen its stock price crumple after Schwab’s announcement.
    — Washington Post, 18 Dec. 2019
  • The woman comes back out 45 minutes later and slowly crumples onto the unfinished patio deck, unable to rise.
    — David J. Neal, miamiherald, 20 Feb. 2018
  • The frenetic music in the background, the melodramatic slaps, Sarah Jane’s slow crumple to the asphalt.
    — New York Times, 23 Feb. 2021
  • Just like seat belts, crumple-zones and airbags increase the odds of surviving an accident, masks, physical distancing (and common sense) will lower the risk of catching this virus.
    — Paul Douglas, Star Tribune, 15 Sep. 2020
  • On impact, the collapsible structure flexes and crumples, basically moving in all directions, depending on the angle and force of the crash.
    — Stephanie Pearson, WIRED, 24 June 2019
  • Pinned up against unyielding bedrock to the north in British Columbia, Washington crumples and cracks under the north-south compression.
    — Sandi Doughton, The Seattle Times, 13 July 2019
  • And there were Sean and Sandy Anderson, a prepper couple who’d seen their camping and tactical goods business crumple and drove over from Idaho.
    — Leah Sottile, Longreads, 15 May 2018
  • One practice into coach Zac Taylor's inaugural season, the last-place Bengals saw their most indispensable player crumple on the field.
    — Joe Kay, Houston Chronicle, 27 July 2019
  • Soundtracking Case’s words are windswept arrangements and contagious melodies where baritone guitar, violin swells, and steady percussion crumple up feelings of dread and anxiety.
    — Nina Corcoran, Pitchfork, 16 Sep. 2025
  • The stainless steel figure has a crumpled appearance that many believe is the result of Gehry balling up a piece of paper and seeing the bear in the crumple, although McLeod said Gehry told her himself that wasn’t true.
    — Malia Mendez, Los Angeles Times, 17 Apr. 2026
  • In addition to the usual air bags, my Ioniq Limited had an energy-absorbing steering wheel, front and rear crumple zones, blind-spot detection with rear cross-traffic alert and lane-change assist, and a rearview camera.
    — Emma Jayne Williams, star-telegram, 11 May 2017

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'crumple.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Last Updated: