Definition of crumble - What it is, Meaning and Concept

The verb crumble usually refers to disarm, undo or disassemble something through its division into small parts .When crumbling, therefore, a whole is divided into multiple portions or fragments.

For example: "To make the sauce, crumble the cheese and mix it with milk, salt and pepper" , "You don't have to shred the cake, you can cut the pieces you want with a knife" , "The cat was in charge of shredding the stuffing of the pillow" .

The action of shredding is frequent in the field of gastronomy .Many preparations require shredding some ingredient to make it easier to mix, melt or cook.If a person want to prepare a bread pudding , to name a case, you will have to crumble the bread and place it in a bowl with milk, eggs, sugar and vanilla essence.

Crumbling can also refer to taking a exam in detail of something.In this context, the notion is linked to study or analyze: “The deputy Socialist proposed to shred external debt to determine what amounts are legitimate and which are not ", " The president of the multinational company will be responsible for shredding the investment plan at a press conference ", "In today's class we are going to shred different concepts related to metaphysics" .

If two journalists, within the framework of a television program dedicated to the sport , begin to discuss a football game, reviewing the most important plays from the beginning to the end of the match, you can to say that they are devoting themselves to shredding the game in question.

Among the most common synonyms of the verb crumble , we find the following: crush, split, chop, pulverize, crumble and divide , to which apply the antonyms join and join .This list is useful for situations in which the term applies to the division of material objects into parts, the food the most common of all.

On the other hand, there are the synonyms that refer to the thorough study of a topic or a phenomenon, as mentioned above: breakdown, examine, detail and analyze .In the example of journalists who talk about a football game and review each of the plays, we could also say that they analyze it, that they examine it or that they break it down , or that they observe in detail its development.

With respect to the etymology of the word crumble , it is a romance formation that derives from the Latin dis- (which refers to the separation by several paths) and the vulgar verb minutiare (which can be translated as "diminish").This last verb denotes the transformation of something into minutia , that is a very small and insignificant part of a thing, as well as the particles of dust.

In our language, the Latin word minutia gave rise to the terms minucia and menuza ; as in the previous case, these two also serve to designate a thing without importance , insignificant, the minimum expression of something.Its root, the Indo-European * mei , is the same as in the word minus (less), and serves to designate the "smallness".Other words that have this same root are the following: often, minuend, diminish, minute, diminish, tiny, minister and minor .

When we crumble a piece of some food , the movement we make with our fingers is very particular, although each person can do it in their own way, and not all products can be shredded with the same technique, it is normal to take it with the fingertips and begin to "rub it", alternating the direction of the thumb and the others.An alternative is to hold it with both hands and move them as if we were lathering them.