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crash program

American

noun

a plan of action entailing rapid and intensive production, growth, or the like, undertaken to meet a deadline or solve a pressing problem.

a crash program to develop a new fighter plane.

Etymology

Origin of crash program

First recorded in 1945–50

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

That would take significantly more time than building a bulky, crude nuclear device in a monthslong crash program, experts say.

From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 27, 2026

In the early 1980s, he led the fight against a crash program to map all human genes, fearing, once again, unknown consequences.

From Los Angeles Times • Sep. 8, 2025

A crash program to develop a cattle equivalent might make sense, says Carol Cardona, an avian influenza specialist and poultry veterinarian at the University of Minnesota.

From Science Magazine • Apr. 1, 2024

Manhattan Project, the World War II–era crash program to build the first-ever atomic bombs.

From Scientific American • Jul. 21, 2023

Now Ernest launched a crash program to convert it into a gigantic mass spectrograph containing several calutrons, each with multiple ion sources and collectors.

From "Big Science" by Michael Hiltzik

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023