crash course
Americannoun
-
a brief, intensive course of instruction, as to prepare one quickly for a test.
-
A short, intensive training course, as in Daisy planned to take a crash course in cooking before she got married. [Colloquial; mid-1900s]
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.
Americans are about to get a crash course in the global economy — and it’s not just about oil supply.
From MarketWatch • Mar. 21, 2026
It’s also been a crash course on what a civil rights emergency looks like.
From Los Angeles Times • Feb. 1, 2026
For tourists, she added, a wedding is the best crash course on the core elements of a culture: “The music, the food, the outfits, the clothes, what people believe about love.”
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 8, 2025
Think about the crash course in vote tabulation and Electoral College procedure that followed.
From Slate • Sep. 19, 2025
“Are you both ready for a crash course in digging for treasure?”
From "The Sea in Winter" by Christine Day
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.