[f. CRUSH v. + -ING1.] The action of the vb. CRUSH.
† 1. Crashing, smashing: see CRUSH v. 1. Obs.
2. Compressing violently so as to bruise or destroy; violent pressure or squeezing. Also fig.
1580. Hollyband, Treas. Fr. Tong, Froissement, a crushing in pieces.
1645. Milton, Tetrach. (1851), 195. The crushing … and the overwhelming of his afflicted Servants.
1694. Acc. Sev. Late Voy., II. (1711), 6. Cornelius Seaman lost his Ship by the squeezing and crushing together of the Ice.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. xviii. 123. The sound produced by the crushing of the fragments.
1890. Spectator, 31 May, 756/2. All delays, discomforts, and crushings were met with good-humour.
3. spec. Bruising or comminution of ore, quartz, oil-seeds, etc., for economic purposes; also attrib. and comb., as crushing-machine, -mill, -seed, etc.
1759. Smeaton, in Phil. Trans., LI. 168. The crushing of rape seed.
1796. Hull Advertiser, 10 Sept., 2/2. Fifty lasts of fine Koningsburg, Crushing Linseed.
1832. Babbage, Econ. Manuf., xxxii. (ed. 3), 337. The Crushing Mill, used in Cornwall and other mining countries.
1872. Raymond, Statist. Mines, 43. The crushing for the year is 9,782 tons of quartz.
