crash and burn

English

Verb

crash and burn (third-person singular simple present crashes and burns, present participle crashing and burning, simple past and past participle crashed and burned)

1. (informal) To fail utterly.
   • 1986, Jim Cash, Jack Epps Jr., Top Gun (motion picture), spoken by Slider (Rick Rossovich):

     Crash and burn, huh, Mav?

   • 2016 April 26, Aditya Chakrabortty, “More rent than pay a mortgage: the Tory dream for London has crashed and burned”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     What these figures show you is how badly the Tory dream has crashed and burned. Not only do fewer Britons now own shares than they did in Thatcher’s time, but also in the capital owner-occupiers (both with mortgages and without) will soon be an outright minority.

Synonyms

• (fail): come to nought, come to nothing, go up in smoke