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crash
crash 1. /n./ A sudden, usually drastic failure. Most often
said of the system (q.v., sense 1), esp. of magnetic disk
drives (the term originally described what happens when the air
gap of a hard disk collapses). "Three lusers lost their
files in last night's disk crash." A disk crash that involves the
read/write heads dropping onto the surface of the disks and
scraping off the oxide may also be referred to as a `head crash',
whereas the term `system crash' usually, though not always,
implies that the operating system or other software was at fault.
2. /v./ To fail suddenly. "Has the system just crashed?"
"Something crashed the OS!" See down. Also used
transitively to indicate the cause of the crash (usually a person
or a program, or both). "Those idiots playing SPACEWAR
crashed the system." 3. /vi./ Sometimes said of people hitting the
sack after a long hacking run; see gronk out.
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