implosion

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. n. A violent collapse inward, as of a highly evacuated glass vessel.
2. n. Violent compression.
3. n. The inward collapse of a building that is being demolished in a controlled fashion by the weakening and breaking of structural members by explosives.
4. n. Linguistics The pronunciation of a stop consonant with the breath drawn in.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. n. A sudden collapse or bursting inward: opposed to explosion.
2. n. In phonology, see the extract.

Wiktionary

1. n. The inrush of air in forming a suction stop.
2. n. The action of imploding.
3. n. The act or action of bringing to or as if to a center.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A bursting inwards, as of a vessel from which the air has been exhausted; -- contrasted with explosion.
2. n. The inward-moving detonation wave cause by detonation of explosives arrayed spherically around a core; -- a technique used in atomic bombs to compress fissionable material to allow a chain reaction time to produce an explosion of the fissionable material.
3. n. (Phon.) A sudden compression of the air in the mouth, simultaneously with and affecting the sound made by the closure of the organs in uttering p, t, or k, at the end of a syllable (see Guide to Pronunciation, §§159, 189); also, a similar compression made by an upward thrust of the larynx without any accompanying explosive action, as in the peculiar sound of b, d, and g, heard in Southern Germany.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a sudden inward collapse
2. n. the initial occluded phase of a stop consonant