Crater
noun
A big, round hole caused by something hitting the ground or by an explosion.
The explosion created a huge crater in the middle of the road.
Often appears as...
- impact crater
- meteorite crater
noun
A large round hole in the surface of a planet, moon or asteroid caused by the impact of a meteorite.
The surface of the moon is covered with craters.
Often appears as...
- moon crater
- impact crater
noun
The circular or oval hollow at the top of a volcano.
Smoke was billowing out the volcano's crater.
Often appears as...
- volcanic crater
- explosion crater
verb
To make a crater-like hollow or hole.
The impact craters the earth.
verb
To fail or weaken suddenly.
His hopes cratered when the deal fell through.
Often appears as...
- cater hopes
- crater prices
Usage tips
Disapproving
Colloquial
noun
A big, round hole caused by something hitting the ground or by an explosion.
The explosion created a huge crater in the middle of the road.
Often appears as...
- impact crater
- meteorite crater
noun
A large round hole in the surface of a planet, moon or asteroid caused by the impact of a meteorite.
The surface of the moon is covered with craters.
Often appears as...
- moon crater
- impact crater
noun
The circular or oval hollow at the top of a volcano.
Smoke was billowing out the volcano's crater.
Often appears as...
- volcanic crater
- explosion crater
verb
To make a crater-like hollow or hole.
The impact craters the earth.
verb
To fail or weaken suddenly.
His hopes cratered when the deal fell through.
Often appears as...
- cater hopes
- crater prices
Usage tips
Disapproving
Colloquial
Definition 1 of 5
Pro Tip 1/2Explosive Origin
Used to describe holes shaped by large force, like blasts, not just regular digging.
After the construction mishap, a crater appeared in the site.
Pro Tip 2/2Dramatic Impact
Suggests a dramatic or major effect, often used metaphorically for notable changes.
The news left a crater in the community's spirit.
Pro Tip 1/2Explosive Origin
Used to describe holes shaped by large force, like blasts, not just regular digging.
After the construction mishap, a crater appeared in the site.
Pro Tip 2/2Dramatic Impact
Suggests a dramatic or major effect, often used metaphorically for notable changes.
The news left a crater in the community's spirit.
Pro Tip 1/2Explosive Origin
Used to describe holes shaped by large force, like blasts, not just regular digging.
After the construction mishap, a crater appeared in the site.
Pro Tip 2/2Dramatic Impact
Suggests a dramatic or major effect, often used metaphorically for notable changes.
The news left a crater in the community's spirit.
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Video examples
Watch the Total Solar...
the moon's craters create these things called Baily's beads and they only last for fractions of a second or maybe a second or two so lots millions of people will have their camera set on high-speed yeah firing off their pictures trying to get that perfect daily speed picture oh and here's an important point if you are trying to do some Astro photography or
Video examples
Mars Gets Ready for Its...
and follow them to the edges of our big weird beautiful world this week we hitch a ride aboard the perseverance rover sort of and learn how its elaborate cameras are ready to get our closest ever look at the red rocks craters and canyons of an ancient delta on mars its mission to seek out signs of past
Video examples
Fred Jansen: How to land...
normally done with spacecraft. Normally, you look at the sky and you know where you point and where you are. In this case, that's not enough. We navigated by looking at landmarks on the comet. We recognized features -- boulders, craters -- and that's how we know where we are respective to the comet.
Video examples
What does an alien look...
and they look a lot like these microbial tubules we also study impact craters these are observed on every planetary body in the solar system and they're created when an asteroid or comet hits the planet or a moon they have a very destructive reputation but they actually
Video examples
Drones Sacrificed for...
reconstruction of the crater itself will be very useful and figuring out which layers are iron-rich which layers are sulfur rich within the caldera as a whole there's certainly life coating the walls as you go down on some of the surfaces down at the bottom almost
Video examples
Robots Hunting for Life...
So to finally get to hear the sounds of grains of sand being turned over and the sounds of that very thin atmosphere being blustered around in this crater, it's absolutely incredible. The first time I saw the pictures from the surface, it was like being
Video examples
Why we need to go back...
ancient ocean basin there aren't many craters and that's because the water protected the the basin from being impacted by asteroids of meteorites and but not look in the southern hemisphere in the southern hemisphere their impact
Video examples
Mars Rover: Opportunity...
it would have been a great success but now the rover heads for a bigger deeper crater nearby which could expose even more bedrock as we went deeper the chemistry and the texture of the rocks changed dramatically in a way that
Video examples
Pluto 101 PIPE National...
With polar ice caps, valleys, planes and craters. It even has glaciers made of frozen nitrogen and frozen water on the surface makes giant floating mountains. Such varied terrain is influenced by the presence
Video examples
How the Mojave Desert...
It's what's brought me here. To this cracked, eroded landscape. Like Mars, it's dry, barren, and incredibly ornate. The carved canyons, long shadows, deep craters,
Video examples
Watch the Total Solar...
the moon's craters create these things called Baily's beads and they only last for fractions of a second or maybe a second or two so lots millions of people will have their camera set on high-speed yeah firing off their pictures trying to get that perfect daily speed picture oh and here's an important point if you are trying to do some Astro photography or
Video examples
Mars Gets Ready for Its...
and follow them to the edges of our big weird beautiful world this week we hitch a ride aboard the perseverance rover sort of and learn how its elaborate cameras are ready to get our closest ever look at the red rocks craters and canyons of an ancient delta on mars its mission to seek out signs of past
Video examples
Fred Jansen: How to land...
normally done with spacecraft. Normally, you look at the sky and you know where you point and where you are. In this case, that's not enough. We navigated by looking at landmarks on the comet. We recognized features -- boulders, craters -- and that's how we know where we are respective to the comet.
Video examples
What does an alien look...
and they look a lot like these microbial tubules we also study impact craters these are observed on every planetary body in the solar system and they're created when an asteroid or comet hits the planet or a moon they have a very destructive reputation but they actually
Video examples
Drones Sacrificed for...
reconstruction of the crater itself will be very useful and figuring out which layers are iron-rich which layers are sulfur rich within the caldera as a whole there's certainly life coating the walls as you go down on some of the surfaces down at the bottom almost
Video examples
Robots Hunting for Life...
So to finally get to hear the sounds of grains of sand being turned over and the sounds of that very thin atmosphere being blustered around in this crater, it's absolutely incredible. The first time I saw the pictures from the surface, it was like being
Video examples
Why we need to go back...
ancient ocean basin there aren't many craters and that's because the water protected the the basin from being impacted by asteroids of meteorites and but not look in the southern hemisphere in the southern hemisphere their impact
Video examples
Mars Rover: Opportunity...
it would have been a great success but now the rover heads for a bigger deeper crater nearby which could expose even more bedrock as we went deeper the chemistry and the texture of the rocks changed dramatically in a way that
Video examples
Pluto 101 PIPE National...
With polar ice caps, valleys, planes and craters. It even has glaciers made of frozen nitrogen and frozen water on the surface makes giant floating mountains. Such varied terrain is influenced by the presence
Video examples
How the Mojave Desert...
It's what's brought me here. To this cracked, eroded landscape. Like Mars, it's dry, barren, and incredibly ornate. The carved canyons, long shadows, deep craters,
Example 1 of 10
Quote examples
Carolyn Porco
American Scientist
Even by the diverse standards of Saturn's satellites, Enceladus was an outlier. Its icy surface was as white and bright as fresh snow, and whereas the other airless moons were heavily pocked with craters, Enceladus was mantled in places with extensive plains of smooth, uncratered terrain, a clear sign of past internally driven geologic activity.
Quote examples
Isabella Bird
English Explorer
Mauna Kea from Hilo has a shapely aspect, for its top is broken into peaks, said to be the craters of extinct volcanoes, but my eyes seek the dome-like curve of Mauna Loa with far deeper interest, for it is as yet an unfinished mountain.
Quote examples
Michio Kaku
American Physicist
Without Jupiter cleaning out the early solar system, the Earth would be pock-marked with meteor collisions. We would suffer from asteroid impacts every day. CNN studios would probably be a gigantic crater it if wasn't for Jupiter.
Quote examples
Carrie Nugent
American Scientist
NASA has hit a comet with an impactor, during the Deep Impact mission. The goal of that mission was to study the surface by making a crater and stirring up the surface material so it could be studied.
Quote examples
Neil deGrasse Tyson
American Scientist
For me at age 11, I had a pair of binoculars and looked up to the moon, and the moon wasn't just bigger, it was better. There were mountains and valleys and craters and shadows. And it came alive.
Quote examples
Alan Stern
American Scientist
The first mission to Mars did not expect to find craters and river valleys, and yet they did. The first mission to Jupiter didn't expect to find ocean worlds and volcano worlds, but they did.
Quote examples
Georgia Toffolo
English Celebrity
I've been called pizza face and others said my skin was full of craters - it's just so horrible when people pin point something that you feel so badly about.
Quote examples
Peter Higgs
British Physicist
One of the first things I did on arriving at school was to break my left arm falling into a bomb crater.
Quote examples
Steven Squyres
American Scientist
We didn't know if the rover could climb up or down the hills of the crater.
Quote examples
Agnes Smedley
American Journalist
I feel like a person living on the brink of a volcano crater.
Quote examples
Carolyn Porco
American Scientist
Even by the diverse standards of Saturn's satellites, Enceladus was an outlier. Its icy surface was as white and bright as fresh snow, and whereas the other airless moons were heavily pocked with craters, Enceladus was mantled in places with extensive plains of smooth, uncratered terrain, a clear sign of past internally driven geologic activity.
Quote examples
Isabella Bird
English Explorer
Mauna Kea from Hilo has a shapely aspect, for its top is broken into peaks, said to be the craters of extinct volcanoes, but my eyes seek the dome-like curve of Mauna Loa with far deeper interest, for it is as yet an unfinished mountain.
Quote examples
Michio Kaku
American Physicist
Without Jupiter cleaning out the early solar system, the Earth would be pock-marked with meteor collisions. We would suffer from asteroid impacts every day. CNN studios would probably be a gigantic crater it if wasn't for Jupiter.
Quote examples
Carrie Nugent
American Scientist
NASA has hit a comet with an impactor, during the Deep Impact mission. The goal of that mission was to study the surface by making a crater and stirring up the surface material so it could be studied.
Quote examples
Neil deGrasse Tyson
American Scientist
For me at age 11, I had a pair of binoculars and looked up to the moon, and the moon wasn't just bigger, it was better. There were mountains and valleys and craters and shadows. And it came alive.
Quote examples
Alan Stern
American Scientist
The first mission to Mars did not expect to find craters and river valleys, and yet they did. The first mission to Jupiter didn't expect to find ocean worlds and volcano worlds, but they did.
Quote examples
Georgia Toffolo
English Celebrity
I've been called pizza face and others said my skin was full of craters - it's just so horrible when people pin point something that you feel so badly about.
Quote examples
Peter Higgs
British Physicist
One of the first things I did on arriving at school was to break my left arm falling into a bomb crater.
Quote examples
Steven Squyres
American Scientist
We didn't know if the rover could climb up or down the hills of the crater.
Quote examples
Agnes Smedley
American Journalist
I feel like a person living on the brink of a volcano crater.
Example 1 of 10
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