Meaning of collapse in English

close downWith sales down, the company closed one factory down and reduced the workforce at another.
closeMany of the shops in the High Street have closed recently.
shut downThe bookshop is shutting down after 25 years of business.
shut UK Several of the bank's local branches are shutting.
shut up shop UK The seaside businesses all shut up shop during the winter.
go/put out of businessMy favourite ice cream shop went out of business last summer.

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More examples

The company is staggering under a $15 million debt and will almost certainly collapse by the end of the year.
Things have gone badly for him since his business collapsed.
All charges against them were withdrawn after the prosecution's case collapsed.
The talks have collapsed and both sides have resorted to brinkmanship.
She'd invested extensively in stocks and got her fingers burned when the market collapsed.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Failing and doing badly

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You can also find related words, phrases, and synonyms in the topics:

Success & failure in business

collapse

noun

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/kəˈlæps/ us

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/kəˈlæps/

collapse noun (FAILURE)

B2 [ C or U ]

the sudden failure of a system, organization, business, etc.:

I don't know what caused the collapse of her marriage.

A poor economy has caused the collapse of thousands of small businesses.

Negotiations between the two countries are on the brink/verge of collapse (= very soon going to fail).

He suffered a mental/nervous collapse after ten years' teaching.

More examples

The collapse of the company was described as the greatest financial debacle in US history.
The collapse of Communism changed East-West relations for ever.
The company is on the edge of collapse.
The collapse of its rivals brought fortuitous gains to the company.
The collapse of the bank is an ominous reminder of the fragility of the world's banking system.

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Failures

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collapse noun (FALL)

[ S or U ]

the sudden falling movement of a person or structure that has become too weak to stand:

He was taken to hospital after his collapse on the pitch.

the collapse of a building during the earthquake

SMART Vocabulary: related words and phrases

Falling and dropping

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(Definition of collapse from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus © Cambridge University Press)

collapse | American Dictionary

collapse

verb

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/kəˈlæps/

collapse verb (FALL)

[ I/T ]

to fall down suddenly, or to cause to fall down:

[ I ] A piece of the wall collapsed on top of him.

collapse verb (FAIL)

[ I ]

to be unable to continue or to stay in operation; fail:

Talks between management and unions collapsed today.

collapse

noun [ C/U ]

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/kəˈlæps/

an inability to continue or to stay in operation:

[ U ] the collapse of the Soviet empire

Collapse can also refer to an attack of extreme physical weakness or unconsciousness in a person:

[ U ] Toward the end of the race he was near collapse.

(Definition of collapse from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

collapse | Business English

collapse

verb [ I ]

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/kəˈlæps/ us

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to suddenly fail or become unable to continue:

the system/economy/government, etc. collapses Without computers the whole economic system would collapse.

a company/bank/industry, etc. collapses The bank collapsed after an alleged massive fraud.

talks/negotiations collapse

FINANCE

to suddenly fall to a much lower level:

prices/shares collapse Share prices collapsed after news of poor trading.

Construction jobs were lost as the property market collapsed.

collapse

noun [ C or U ]

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/kəˈlæps/ us

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the sudden failure of a system, organization, business, etc.:

A poor economy has caused the collapse of thousands of small businesses.

on the brink/verge of collapse Negotiations between the two companies are on the brink of collapse

FINANCE

a sudden fall to a much lower level:

the collapse of the American real estate market

a price/market collapse Did options accelerate the oil price collapse?

(Definition of collapse from the Cambridge Business English Dictionary © Cambridge University Press)

Examples of collapse

collapse

He sings a drinking song as the bridge collapses.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Thirdly, this closed account collapses when a believer in one faith meets believers from a different religious tradition.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

More examples Fewer examples

By almost any standards the poorer rural areas have fallen further and further behind; young people have left and traditional industries have collapsed.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The sound of breaking timber made people think the roof was collapsing, and an even worse panic ensued.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

If these 4 are collapsed into 2 categories of survivor and non-survivor, it would produce 62/240 errors for a prognosis accuracy of 74%.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The definition also collapses very different female-identified resistances together.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

If an ill-designed and poorly constructed house collapses, how can you expect otherwise?

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Clearly that justification collapsed once it became clear that shareholders in large public companies no longer exercised any real control or responsibility over their property.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The lid had collapsed on to the remains, the sides had fallen outwards, but the two end pieces remained upright.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The rebellion and its attempts to establish social harmony collapses.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

Huge sections of the outer walls had collapsed and other parts were in very poor shape.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

If cor tisol-behavior associations are tested using variance collapsed across these sources, the ability to detect an effect may be compromised.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

In the limit, without any counteracting mechanism, these fluctuations may become so extreme that output collapses.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

When the safe zone collapsed in the next phase of the war, they confronted this dilemma directly by temporarily withdrawing their protection of civilians.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

The axial velocity profiles of the other cases may be similarly collapsed.

From the Cambridge English Corpus

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These examples are from corpora and from sources on the web. Any opinions in the examples do not represent the opinion of the Cambridge Dictionary editors or of Cambridge University Press or its licensors.