[-ING1.]
1. The action of the verb CRACKLE; the production of a rapid succession of slight cracking sounds; crepitation.
1599. T. M[oufet], Silkwormes, 51. With wondrous crackling filling both our eares.
1611. Bible, Eccl. vii. 6. For as the crackling of thornes vnder a pot, so it the laughter of the foole: this also is vanitie.
1732. Arbuthnot, Rules of Diet, I. 252. Dry Scurvy with crackling of the Bones.
1860. Tyndall, Glac., I. § 3. 30. At times the silence was perfect, unbroken save by the crackling of the frozen snow beneath our own feet.
fig. 1712. Addison, Spect., No. 381, ¶ 13. Those little Cracklings of Mirth and Folly.
1862. Carlyle, Fredk. Gt. (1865), III. IX. ii. 85. Gay bantering humour in him, cracklings, radiations.
2. The crisp skin or rind of roast pork (usually scored with parallel cuts).
1709. W. King, Cookery, 486. But if it lies too long, the cracklings pall’d.
1796. Mrs. Glasse, Cookery, iii. 17. When you roast a loin … cut the skin across, to make the crackling eat the better.
1823. Lamb, Elia, Roast Pig. There is no flavour comparable … to that of the crisp, well-watched, not over-roasted, crackling, as it is well called.
1882. Mrs. H. Reeve, Cookery & Housek., 195. The object is to keep the crackling from scorching and to render it crisp.
b. In Cambridge University slang, applied to the three bars of velvet on the sleeve of the gown worn by students of St. John’s College. (In reference to the nick-name ‘hogs’).
1873. in Slang Dict.
1891. Proc. Soc. Antiquaries, 15 Jan., 217. Richly laced over the upper part of the arm, the ‘crackling’ as it would be called at Cambridge.
3. The residue of tallow-melting, used for feeding dogs. (Usually pl.) Cf. CRACON.
1621. Acts Jas. VI. (1814), 628 (Jam.). That the candlemakeris prowyid thame selffis of houssis for melting of thair tallowe and cracklingis at some remote pairtis of the toun.
1844. J. F. W. Johnston, Lect. Agric. Chem., 884. Cracklings are the skinny parts of the suet from which the tallow has been for the most part squeezed out.
c. 1865. Letheby, in Circ. Sc., I. 94/1. The residue is sold under the name of greaves or cracklings, and is used for feeding dogs.
b. dial. and U.S. ‘The crisp residue of hogs’ fat after the lard is fried out. Crackling-bread is corn-bread interspersed with cracklings’ (Bartlett).
1883. Gilmour, Mongols (1884), 27. A little fat melted in the pot, the cracklings carefully removed.
1887. Boston (Mass.) Jrnl., 31 Dec., 2/4. Half dozen pones of cracklin’ bread, made from Georgia-raised hogs.
4. = CRACKNEL. Now dial. [= F. craquelin.]
1598. W. Phillips, Linschoten’s Voy., I. xxx. 58. A great siluer or guilt vessell full of bread baked like cracklinges.
1847–78. in Halliwell.
1875. Parish, Sussex Dial., Cracklings, crisp cakes.
5. = CRACKLE sb. 3, crackle-ware.
1876. ‘Ouida,’ Moths, ix. 109. Sipping tea … in an alcove lined with celadon and crackling.
† 6. Crackling-pokes (Sc.): bags for holding explosives in old naval warfare. Obs.
1549. Compl. Scot., vi. 41. Boitis man bayr stanis & lyme pottis ful of lyme in the craklene pokis to the top.
