implode

present singular third person implodes · participle present imploding · participle past imploded · past imploded

1. intransitiveTo collapse or burst inward violently.

   The submarine imploded as it sank below its crush depth.

   Antonyms: explode

   1. broadlyintransitivegovernmentTo suddenly lose support in all areas of a campaign simultaneously.

      Ragusa's campaign imploded after she confused coal mining with oil drilling during a speech.

      Antonyms: explode

2. transitiveTo cause to collapse or burst inward violently.
3. computingThe opposite of explode, array to string conversion.
4. transitivecomputingTo compress (data) with a particular algorithm.

   I'm looking for some code that will implode data using the PKZIP method.. and explode it. PKWare sells an object that you can link with that does the job, and we have licensed this, but we are now writing 32 bit code for MS-DOS and the PKWare stuff won't work […]

   1992, Steve Tibbett, “PKZIP Implode compression/decompression.”, in comp.compression (Usenet)

   Antonyms: explode