crash and burn
"crash-and-burn" is a 12-letter English headword indexed on PlainSpell.
The verdict
“crash and burn” is uncommon English (outside the top frequency list), classed as a verb. The kind of spelling people second-guess.
- Unranked
- below top-frequency English
- 14
- letters
According to Wiktionary data (CC BY-SA, analyzed September 3, 2026) - To fail utterly.
Corpus desk
Index EN-crash-and-burn · crash and burn · English
crash and burn · unranked · 0 variants · 0 confusables
- FREQ-UNRANKED Unranked
- LEN-MEGA 14 letters
- VOW-3 3 vowels
- CONFUS-0 No pairs
- VAR-0 0 variants
- BOOK-THIN "C" thin
- PHOTO-UNK Peer pending
Read with this headword: Spelling guide for this pattern
Desk codes from Wiktionary headword shape, FrequencyWords rank tier, confusable-pair count, generated misspelling depth, letter-cohort book size, and photo-finish peer. Not a difficulty grade.
| Property | Value |
|---|---|
| Headword | crash and burn |
| Language | English |
| Part of speech | Verb |
| Letters | 14 |
| Misspellings tracked | 0 |
| Confusable pairs | 0 |
| Source | Wiktionary (kaikki.org) |
Long-tail rank of “crash and burn” in English
Rare enough to double-check
crash and burn is uncommon English outside the top frequency list, classed as averb. Rarity is why readers land here mid-draft. Gloss: "To fail utterly.".
crash and burn doesn't appear in our generated misspelling index, a straightforward case of a spelling with little room for common typos. This entry stands alone in our confusable dataset, since nothing in our dataset looks or sounds close enough to cause mix-ups.
This headword's origin isn't recorded in our source data, so its spelling pattern is best understood through pronunciation rather than a traceable origin. The correct English form is crash and burn, spelled C-R-A-S-H- -A-N-D- -B-U-R-N.
Definition
- 1To fail utterly.
Recorded use
Wiktionary examplesThese source excerpts show how crash and burn appears in context. They illustrate usage; the definition above remains the entry’s reference meaning.
Crash and burn, huh, Mav?
What these figures show you is how badly the Tory dream has crashed and burned. Not only do fewer Britons now own shares than they did in Thatcher’s time, but also in the capital owner-occupiers (both with mortgages and without) will soon be an outright minority.
Definitions, pronunciation, and etymology for this entry are drawn from Wiktionary via the kaikki.org structured extract (CC BY-SA). See the methodology for how each field is sourced and updated.