Also 6 crakar, 6–7 craker. [f. CRACK v. + -ER1.] One who or that which cracks (in any of the senses of the vb.).
1. gen.
1625. B. Jonson, Staple of News, Prol. for Crt. To scholars … above the vulgar sort Of nut-crackers, that only come for sight.
1842. Dickens, Amer. Notes (1850), 14/1. A teller of anecdotes and cracker of jokes.
1886. Besant, Childr. Gibeon, II. xviii. A professional in his own line, a cracker of cribs.
2. esp. A boaster, braggart; hence, a liar.
1509. Barclay, Shyp of Folys (1874), I. 12. Crakars and bosters with Courters auenterous.
1573. Tusser, Husb. (1878), 121. Two good hay makers, woorth twentie crakers.
1595. Shaks., John, II. i. 147. What cracker is this same that deafes our eares With this abundance of superfluous breath?
1652. Ashmole, Theatr. Chem., cx. 208. Beware … Of Boasters and Crackers, for they will thee beguile.
1746. Brit. Mag., 48. Crackers against you are hang’d in Effigy.
3. familiar or colloq. A lie.
a. 1625. Fletcher, Woman’s Prize, III. iv. Crackers Put now upon me?
1863. Reade, Hard Cash, I. 28. That was a cracker of those fellows.
1871. Daily News, 24 July, 5/3. Learning to tell lies, and call them ‘crackers.’
4. U.S. A contemptuous name given in southern States of N. America to the ‘poor whites’; whence, familiarly, to the native whites of Georgia and Florida. Also attrib.
According to some, short for CORN-CRACKER; but early quots. leave this doubtful.
1784. Lond. Chron., No. 4287. Maryland, the back settlements of which colony had since the peace been greatly disturbed by the inroads of that hardy banditti well known by the name of Crackers.
1850. Lyell, 2nd Visit U.S., II. 73. Sometimes … my host would be of the humblest class of ‘crackers,’ or some low, illiterate German or Irish emigrants.
1856. Olmsted, Slave States, 547–8. The operatives in the cotton-mills are said to be mainly ‘Cracker girls’ (poor whites from the country).
1887. Beacon (Boston), 11 June. The word Cracker … is supposed to have been suggested by their cracking whips over oxen or mules in taking their cotton to the market.
1888. F. H. Spearman, in Harper’s Mag., July, 240/1. They will live like the crackers of Georgia or the moonshiners of Tennessee.
5. A local name for the Pintail Duck (Dafila acuta), and the Corn-crake (Crex pratensis).
1678. Ray, Willughby’s Ornith., 376. The Sea-Pheasant or Cracker: Anas caudacuta.
1812. Smellie & Wood, Buffon’s Nat. Hist., X. 155. Pintail, Sea Pheasant or Cracker.
1843. Yarrell, Hist. Brit. Birds (1845), III. 253.
1885. Swainson, Provinc. Names of Birds (E. D. S.), 177. Corn Crake … Creck, Cracker, or Craker (North; Salop). Bean crake, or Bean cracker (South Pembroke).
6. A kind of firework that explodes with a sharp report or a succession of sharp reports.
1590. Greene, Orl. Fur. (1599), 39. Yes, yes, with squibs and crackers brauely.
1661. Pepys, Diary, 5 Nov. Seeing the boys in the streets flying their crackers.
1702. De Foe, Reform, Manners. These are the Squibs and Crackers of the Law, Which Hiss, and make a Bounce, and then withdraw.
1851. D. Jerrold, St. Giles, xx. 206. Not a schoolboy but would have had his cap and pockets stuffed with crackers.
b. (In full cracker bon-bon.) A bon-bon, or small parcel of sweets, etc., containing a fulminant, which explodes when pulled sharply at both ends.
1841. Alb. Smith, Delightful People, in Mirror, XXXVII. 404. He exploded a cracker bonbon. Ibid. (1844), Mr. Ledbury, xxiv. (1886), 75. They paid compliments, and said clever things, and pulled crackers.
1882. Mrs. B. M. Croker, Proper Pride, I. iv. 61. You remember the cracker we pulled together … on Monday, and I would not show you the motto?
† 7. A pistol. Obs. slang. (Cf. BARKER1 4.)
1751. Smollett, Per. Pic., xxv. I don’t value your crackers of a rope’s end.
8. An instrument for cracking or crushing something; a crusher; spec. in pl. nut-crackers.
1634. Massinger, Very Woman, III. ii. A pair of nut-crackers.
a. 1659. Osborn, Observ. Turks (1673), 344. The Tongues being at the best but the Crackers of Knowledge: the Kernel remaining useless … till picked and dressed by Employment and Experience.
1799. Southey, Nondescripts, vi. It were an easy thing to crack that nut Or with thy crackers or thy double teeth.
1874. Knight, Dict. Mech., Cracker … 3. One of the deeply grooved iron cylinders which revolve in pairs and grind the tough, raw caoutchouc.
1884. West Sussex Gaz., 25 Sept. Turnip slicer, oilcake cracker.
b. humorously (in pl.). The teeth.
1815. Lamb, Lett. to Wordsw., 9 Aug. I conjecture my full-happiness’d friend is picking his crackers.
9. A thin hard biscuit. (Now chiefly in U.S.)
1810. Naval Chron., XXIV. 459. Twenty barrels … flour, 20 barrels crackers, 30 bags navy bread.
1847. De Quincey, Sp. Mil. Nun, Wks. (1890), XIII. 179, note. His patent for a machine that rolls and cuts crackers and biscuits.
1855. O. W. Holmes, Poems, 108. Crackers, toast, and tea.
1868. B. J. Lossing, Hudson, 28. The hunters live chiefly on bread or crackers, and maple sugar.
10. pl. (S. Africa). (See quot.)
1849. E. E. Napier, Excurs. S. Africa, II. 13, note. Sheepskin trousers—which, from the sound they make at every movement of the wearer, are called ‘crackers.’ Ibid., 121. Equipped in the easy and serviceable dress of a broad-brimmed ‘Jem Crow’ hat, a fustian jacket, leather ‘crackers.’
11. slang. a. A ‘cracking’ or ‘rattling’ pace.
1871. Daily News, 1 Nov., 3/3 (Farmer). The shooting party mounting their forest ponies came up the straight a cracker.
1891. N. Gould, Double Event, 124. Rob Roy made the pace a cracker past the sheds.
1892. Field, 9 April, 514/2. The deer … went a rare cracker over Shirt Hill.
b. A break-down, a smash: cf. CRACK v. 15.
1869. Daily News, 8 Nov., 5/2 (Farmer). He’s gone a cracker over head and ears.
Hence (nonce-wds.) Cracker v. trans., to pelt with crackers. Crackeress, a female cracker. Crackery, crackers collectively.
1870. Pall Mall Gaz., 5 Nov., 5/1. They may not squib and cracker the inhabitants.
1883. Chamb. Jrnl., 690/2. This young Crackeress was as ill-dressed and as untidy as her mother.
1824. Miss Mitford, Village, Ser. I. (1863), 57. As much of squibbery and crackery as our boys can borrow.
