crunchy en · ADJ
Pronunciation
- (Australia) audio
- /ˈkɹʌnt͡ʃi/
Etymology
Etymology tree English crunch Proto-Indo-European *-kos Proto-Germanic *-gaz Proto-West Germanic *-g Old English -iġ Middle English -y English -y English crunchy From crunch + -y. The slang sense is derived from the concept of crunchy granola.
Meanings
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Likely to crunch, especially with reference to food when it is eaten.
Inspector: Well, don't you even take the bones out? Mr. Hilton: If we took the bones out, it wouldn't be crunchy, would it?
1969 November 23, “Crunchy Frog”, in Monty Python's Flying Circus, season 1, episode 6:The importance of Nowruz is reflected in an elaborate sabzi polo, the herbed rice capped with a crunchy tahdig, the crust formed from lettuce, rice mixed with yogurt or lavash or another thin flatbread. On Wednesday night, I opted for sheveed polo, a simpler and quicker dill rice, but I can’t wait to nail that crunchy tahdig tonight.
2026 March 15, Genevieve Ko, “‘This Is the Best Dish I Have Ever Made From NYT Cooking’”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 15 Mar 2026:I put some lettuce in the burger to make it more crunchy.
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(figuratively, slang) Having counter-culture sensibilities; nature-loving or hippie; wholesome, health-conscious.
Weiner says being in Oakland “allows you to encounter different ideas” in terms of style “like crunchy, old people in the organic produce section of the grocery store, wearing very Bay Area specific outfits”.
2022 November 10, Lauren Cochrane, quoting Jonah Weiner, “‘Cool kids want to dress like old crunchy people’: the fashion newsletter where wholesome is hip”, in The Guardian, →ISSN, archived from the original on 15 Feb 2023:Ms. Noe, a self-described “crunchy teen,” is just one of a number of young influencers who appeal to other health-conscious kids their age.
2025 May 5, Rina Raphael, “Some Teen Wellness Influencers Embrace Kennedy-Style Skepticism”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 06 May 2025:Silky mama won't typically go for cloth diapers like crunchy mama.
The pipeline is real; individual people are indeed being recruited into the militant right. Some of them make this journey through “crunchy” online spaces into white-power content, as the sociologist Cynthia Miller-Idriss has documented in Hate in the Homeland.
2022 December 14, Kathleen Belew, “The Crunchy-to-Alt-Right Pipeline”, in The Atlantic, archived from the original on 05 Nov 2023:San Francisco was a very crunchy town.
- (informal) Of a chord, containing dissonant intervals.
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(informal) Of an image, pixelated, grainy, or exhibiting blocking, often as a result of oversharpening, a low resolution, or aggressively applied lossy image compression.
This can result in the image looking very crunchy as pixels are skipped - especially if you choose the "Fit" option in the Magnification popup. Don't panic; your final image won't look that bad[…]
2007, Trish Meyer, Chris Meyer, After Effects Apprentice: Real-world Skills for the Aspiring Motion Graphics Artist, Taylor & Francis, →ISBN:[…] pixels that look hideous on screen to a printing device. But if the pixels don't look seriously crunchy on the display, you're almost certainly undersharpening your images. The only reliable way to evaluate print sharpening is to[…]
2009 September 25, Bruce Fraser, Jeff Schewe, Real World Image Sharpening with Adobe Photoshop, Camera Raw, and Lightroom, Peachpit Press, →ISBN:
- (qualifier:board games, slang) Of a game, having significant calculation (number-crunching), complex analysis, or strategic optimization for players to think about.
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| crunchiest | Degree=Sup | lexicographic | |
| crunchier | Degree=Cmp | lexicographic |
Deriveds
crunchy mom · crunchy roll · crunchy mama · crunchewy · crunchiness · crunchy-gravel drama · crunchily
Synonyms
Translations (40)
uk хрусткий (likely to crunch) · tr gevrek (likely to crunch) · hu ropogós (likely to crunch) · fa کروچنده (likely to crunch) · fr croquant (likely to crunch) · bcl maragsip (likely to crunch) · pl chrupiący (likely to crunch) · es crujiente (likely to crunch) · sv krispig (likely to crunch) · no knasende (likely to crunch) · gl crocante (likely to crunch) · de knusprig (likely to crunch) · tr çıtır (likely to crunch) · ms rangup (likely to crunch) · pl kruchy (likely to crunch) · eo krakmaĉa (likely to crunch) · cy creisionllyd (likely to crunch) · fi rapea (likely to crunch) · uk хрумкий (likely to crunch) · nn krasete (likely to crunch) · nn knasande (likely to crunch) · el τραγανιστός (likely to crunch) · mi kakukaku (likely to crunch) · gl triscante (likely to crunch) · ru хрустя́щий (likely to crunch) · tr kıtır (likely to crunch) · ro crocant (likely to crunch) · be хрусткі (likely to crunch) · nn sprø (likely to crunch) · sv knaprig (likely to crunch) · es crocante (likely to crunch) · ca cruixent (likely to crunch) · eo krusteca (likely to crunch) · pl chrupki (likely to crunch) · tr kıtır kıtır (likely to crunch) · pt crocante (likely to crunch) · bg хру́пкав (likely to crunch) · it croccante (likely to crunch) · cmn 脆 (likely to crunch) · tr çıtır çıtır (likely to crunch)