crash down

crash down

1. Literally, to fall down or collapse, often noisily. When the tree crashed down in the woods, it woke us all up.
2. By extension, to result in disaster or lose all stability amidst drastic problems. When I lied on my resume to get my dream job, I really hoped it wouldn't all come crashing down around me—but, of course, it did. I've felt like my life is crashing down around me ever since my husband's sudden death.
See also: crash, down
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

crash down

 (around someone or something) and crash down (about someone or something)
1. and crash in (on someone or something) Lit. [for something] to collapse on someone or something. The walls crashed in around the burning house. The branches of the tree crashed down on the roof. The old barn crashed down.
2. Fig. [for the structure and stability of one's life] to fall apart. Her whole life crashed down around her. Everything he was familiar with crashed down about him.
See also: crash, down
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of American Idioms and Phrasal Verbs.
See also:
  • come a gutser
  • be down to (one)
  • be down to somebody/something
  • bear down on (someone or something)
  • climb down
  • be down to (do something)
  • be down to something
  • clamp down
  • clamp down on
  • clamp down on (someone or something)
References in classic literature
So fierce was their meeting that their spears shivered up to the very grasp, and the horses reared backwards until it seemed that they must crash down upon their riders.
The White Company
The avalanche had shaken and slid a little forward, but it did not yet crash down.
Jane Eyre
Then the strange sucks would grip my legs and drag me under, to spout me up in some fierce boiling, where, even as I tried to catch my breath, a great whitecap would crash down upon my head.
Tales of the Fish Patrol
Both crash down on reefs about the size of a tennis court.
Surf legend lauds giant Irish waves; EXTREME
Gales of up to 75mph tore across the region this morning, causing a tree to fall on a house extension in Pencoed, and another 60ft tree to crash down in Whitchurch, Cardiff.
Region is battered by winds
One wrong move and the whole shebang will crash down on you.
Hook it up right
In Berlin, the practice chose to emphasize the rocky verticality of their country: the only one in Scandinavia to have significant mountains - awesome places of the north in which vast cliffs of igneous and metamorphic rock crash down into the prodigiously deep, icy green waters of the fjords.
ELEMENTAL NORWEGIAN
The children's father said: "I thought the whole place was about to crash down."
Nine hurt in ferry grenade attack