1. n. A sudden, usually drastic failure. Most often said
of the system (q.v., sense 1), sometimes of magnetic disk
drives.
"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.