Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (US) an outstanding success.

1920		H.C. Witwer Kid Scanlon 64: I never heard of Columbus gettin’ pinched for speedin’ and Shakespeare never had no trouble with blowouts. Yet all them birds was looked on as the loud crash in their time.
1932		R. Forbes Red Horizon 174: ‘[W]hat a crash you’d be in my Long Island home. Why, who’d wanna listen to the radio once you started talking’.

2. (US campus) a complete failure in an examination.

1900

E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 30: crash, n. A complete flunk.

3. (US campus) a crush, an infatuation.

1900		E.H. Babbitt ‘College Words and Phrases’ in DN II:i 30: crash, n. Strong infatuation.
1930		‘Leslie Charteris’ Enter the Saint 71: I expect he’s got some foolish crash on you [...] It’s the only way you’d expect a man like that to behave.
1960, 1975		Wentworth & Flexner DAS.

4. (Aus.) a misfortune.

1919		W.H. Downing Digger Dialects 17: crash (n. or vb.) — To suffer a misfortune; a misfortune.
1938		F. Anthony ‘Winter Feeding the Herd’ in Me And Gus (1977) 82: Every time he gets the lemon he tries to put up a bluff, that his crash is according to programme, but he can’t fool me about it.

5. (US Und.) a police raid.

1916		Seattle Star 11 Nov. 8/3: Key to Broadway Slang! [...] He fanned me like I was a Wilbur, but I was Jake to his play; he thought I might try to work a crash.
1929		Hostetter & Beesley It’s a Racket! 222: crash — Exposure and break-up of a racket.
1935		A.J. Pollock Und. Speaks 26/2: Crash, police breaking-in to an unlawful place.

6. (US Und.) a break-in.

1970		‘Red’ Rudensky Gonif 7: The crash took only two minutes, almost like child’s play.
1971		D. Goines Dopefiend (1991) 162: He had been around too long not to know what a crash meant. He was aware that, when you crashed, the whole thing depended on speed, if you didn’t want to get caught in a freak bust.

7. see crash-out n.