A dictionary of Confusable Phrases: More Than 10,000 Idioms and Collocations

crack a bottle • hit the bottle
crack a bottle —(coll.) have a drink, especially to celebrate a
special occasion: That’s wonderful news! I can’t think of any
better reason for cracking a bottle.
count someone off
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hit the bottle —(coll.) drink too much habitually or over a
period of time: She seemed all right for a while but I’m afraid
she’s hitting the bottle again.
crack-brain • crackhead
crack-brain —(coll.) a stupid person; a fool: Sometimes you
are quite a crackbrain yourself.
crackhead —(sl.) a user of “crack”— crystalline, smokable co-
caine: They brought an eight-year-old crackhead in for treat-
ment.
crash about • crash about someone’s ears
crash about—move about in a clumsy, noisy manner: Now,
I don’t want any of you children crashing about upstairs while
your father’s asleep.
crash about someone’s ears —(of one’s dreams, ambitions, etc.)
fail suddenly; collapse disastrously: All our plans crashed about
our ears when the government changed the tax laws.
crash barrier • crush barrier
crash barrier —a barrier erected along the side of a road or
between the two halves of a motorway to prevent accidents:
The lorry hit the crash barrier and overturned.
crush barrier —a (temporary) barrier for restraining a crowd:
It was the day of the Ibrox Park disaster when 66 fans died
leaving the ground when a crush barrier collapsed.
Note: 
The expression does not correlate in meaning with the
phrase crush bar— a place in a theater for audiences to buy
drinks in the intervals: In the second interval he made his way
to the crush bar.
crash into something • crush into something
crash into something —hit smth. with force, usually acciden-
tally: Emergency services examine the scene where a car
crashed into a power pole, killing the driver.
crush into something —
1
. press into smth. so that there is
breaking or injury: Many passengers were injured in the crash
which left the front three carriages crushed into the rear of the
train. 2. enter a building or enclosed space in a tightly packed
mass: People crushed into the stadium whether they had tick-
ets or not.