crumple

They were at work when the quakes struck, causing high-rise apartment buildings, shopping centers and schools to crumple.

From Barron's ● Jun. 29, 2026

To wrap a basketball, for example, you’d need to crumple the paper in a horrible mess or cut many pieces and tape them together with unsightly overlaps.

From Slate ● Jan. 21, 2026

Rot and death would spread through their venerable trunks and crumple their limbs — but their roots and stumps, cradled by the continent’s most ancient mountains, lived on in the sandy, acidic Appalachian soil.

From Salon ● Dec. 18, 2023

Yael and Shachar, at just 11 and 9, have seen such horrors that their small faces crumple into tears again and again.

From BBC ● Oct. 23, 2023

I look down at my name and begin to crumple the entire certificate, but a tiny black smudge catches my eye.

From "A Step from Heaven" by An Na

If people and institutions and businesses and government stand up to him, he crumples.

From Slate ● Jan. 23, 2026

Bynum keeps the camera on her as Jessie crumples her face in her hands.

From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 21, 2025

His forehead crumples as he does so and his big hands shake.

From BBC ● Jun. 8, 2023

The situation is akin to a car that crumples in a crash: the vehicle absorbs the impact to protect passengers, but it is totaled.

From Scientific American ● Feb. 22, 2023

My forehead crumples, and I hold his hands back firmly because I need him to listen.

From "Starfish" by Akemi Dawn Bowman

But it also helps us understand why a crumpled sock in the middle of the living room or dirty dishes on the kitchen counter makes the exhausted woman in your life crash out.

From Salon ● Oct. 18, 2026

At the Louvre, staff are still discussing when and how to put the theft’s lone survivor back on public view: Empress Eugenie’s 19th-century crown, which thieves dropped and crumpled outside the museum during their getaway.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 15, 2026

I didn’t feel any affinity with the humanoid that smashed Bolt’s 100-meter record, but found the robot weightlifter that crumpled under a 15kg barbell and staggered into a table very relatable.

From Slate ● Sep. 27, 2026

More recently, I tidied the home of a friend who was in the hospital, the pill bottles and crumpled blankets left in situ as evidence of someone else’s pain.

From Los Angeles Times ● May 28, 2026

I saw my dirty shoes and crumpled dress, my wet coat lying on the dewy grass.

From "The Light in Hidden Places" by Sharon Cameron

Videos posted to social media and verified by AFP on Monday showed the catastrophic collapse of a shopping centre in General Santos, and an unoccupied school building crumpling.

From Barron's ● Jun. 9, 2026

"Knowing my son ended up like this, I'm inconsolable, I'm filled with grief," U Hla Aung said, his face crumpling into a sob.

From BBC ● Apr. 2, 2025

But first, she sobs, crumpling into Samuel’s arms while he holds her close.

From Salon ● Dec. 30, 2024

“I want people to know that we’re just normal people,” Ms. Broadbent, her face crumpling as she fought through tears, told Mr. Johnson.

From New York Times ● Feb. 21, 2024

He heard car crashes at least once a week, but this sound was worse - Celestial bronze crumpling, wood splintering, stallions screaming and a goddess wailing in two distinct voices, both of them very surprised.

From "Blood of Olympus" by Rick Riordan