crater
noun · verb
Simple meaning
A hemispherical pit created by the impact of a meteorite or other object.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
krayterSay the bold part a little louder.
IPA pronunciation (US)
ˈkɹeɪtɚ
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
astronomy
A hemispherical pit created by the impact of a meteorite or other object.
geology
The basin-like opening or mouth of a volcano, through which the chief eruption comes; similarly, the mouth of a geyser, about which a cone of silica is often built up.
The pit left by the explosion of a mine or bomb.
informalby extension
Any large, roughly circular depression or hole.
verb
figurative
To collapse catastrophically; to become devastated or completely destroyed.
To form craters in a surface.
Word at a Glance
- Difficulty
- B2 · Upper Intermediate (estimated)
- Frequency
- Moderately Common
- Typical Use
- Neutral / general English
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: A hemispherical pit created by the impact of a meteorite or other object.
Used this way, crater is a specialist word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. This is a scientific use: it names something precisely within a field of study, so it appears in research and teaching more than in conversation.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Specialist/technical
- Intensity
- Not strongly marked
- How common
- Specialized
- Connotation
- Clinical and technical
- Usage feel
- Technical and specialized
Where it naturally appears
- Science
- Academic writing
- Technical/specialist writing
Usage note
In general conversation this sense usually needs explaining — outside its field, people reach for a plainer word.
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use crater
- “He cratered into that snow bank about five seconds after his first lesson.”verb
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Common Patterns and Combinations
How this word naturally appears with others.
Word Family
Related forms, grouped by how they connect.
Inflected forms
Grammatical variations of the same word.
A rugged box (usually made of wood).
Compound terms
Established multiword terms.
A national park in Oregon having the deepest lake in the United States in the crater of an extinct volcano.
A crater on the Earth's Moon.
A bowl-shaped geological formation at the top of a volcano.
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.