fall apart

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fall apart (third-person singular simple present falls apart, present participle falling apart, simple past fell apart, past participle fallen apart) (intransitive)

1. To disintegrate, to break into pieces.

   My old briefcase is falling apart. I'll have to buy a new one.

   • 2011, Tom Fordyce, Rugby World Cup 2011: England 12-19 France‎:

     England's World Cup dreams fell apart under a French onslaught on a night when their shortcomings were brutally exposed at the quarter-final stage.

   • 2024 September 9, “Network News: Robeston train troubles”, in Rail, page 6:

     It investigated extensive damage caused by a Robeston-Westerleigh train after the brake system under one of its wagons fell apart on October 30 2017.

2. (idiomatic) To be emotionally in crisis.

   As a result of being addicted to heroin, she was falling apart.

   • 1980 December 20, Andrea F. Loewenstein, “A Personal Remembrance Of The Saints”, in Gay Community News, volume 8, number 22, page 14:

     At first I used to look at so many of us having fights or crying or staggering around messed up somehow and think, "God, are we fucked up!" but now what I think is that it was a safe place to fall apart in — one of the few. You didn't have to be politically correct or well-behaved; you could be wild or angry or miserable.

• (break into pieces through being in a dilapidated state): break, break apart, break up, come apart, come apart at the seams, come undone, disintegrate, fall to bits, fall to pieces
• (be emotionally in crisis): crack up

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