Meaning

noun a loud resonant repeating noise

noun a serious accident (usually involving one or more vehicles)

noun a sudden large decline of business or the prices of stocks (especially one that causes additional failures)

originFrom Middle English crasshen, crasschen, craschen (“to break into pieces”), of uncertain origin. Perhaps from a variant of earlier *crasken, from crasen (“to break”) + -k (formative suffix); or from earlier *craskien, *craksien, a variant of craken (“to crack, break open”) (for form development compare break, brask, brash).

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 3.0