[f. the vb.]
1. The act of crackling; the emission of slight cracks.
1833. Ht. Martineau, Manch. Strike, vi. 68. The occasional crackle when Allen folded his paper.
1855. Costello, Stor. Screen, 76. The crackle of the blazing faggots.
1872. Black, Adv. Phaeton, I. xiv. 304. A thin crackle of laughter.
† 2. Something that makes a crackling noise; a rattle. Obs.
1591. Percivall, Sp. Dict., Trebejo, a chesse boord, a childes crackle.
3. A kind of china ware characterized by the appearance of minute cracks all over its surface. Also crackle-china, crackle-ware. So Crackle-glass, a kind of glass of a similar character (originally made at Venice).
1867. Miss Braddon, R. Godwin, I. 170. Curious specimens of crackle, brought home by the Captain.
1885. G. H. Boughton, Sk. Rambles Holland, xvii. 231. Their rarest and choicest bits of old blue and crackle.
attrib. 1875. Ure, Dict. Arts, II. 668 s.v. Glass, The reticulated glass, the crackle glass … are all due to the Venetians.
1883. Miss Braddon, Gold. Calf, I. iv. 102. They had … sniffed at the stale pot-pourri in old crackle vases.
1881. Julia Schayer, in Scribn. Mag., XXI. 266/2. A skin like yellow crackle-ware.
