Forms: 5 crakenelle, krakenelle, 5–6 craknel(l, 6 crakenell, crackenel(l, cracknelle, -nal, 6–9 -nell, 6– -nel. [app. an alteration of F. craquelin: cf. the dial. equivalent CRACKLING 4. With the F. cf. Flem. craeckelink, Du. krakeling in same sense, f. krake crack.]

1

  1.  A light, crisp kind of biscuit, of a curved or hollowed shape. Cf. CRACKLING 4.

2

c. 1440.  Promp. Parv., 48. Brede twyys bakyn, as krakenelle or symnel, or other lyke.

3

1481–90.  Howard Housh. Bks. (Roxb.), 165. Item, to krakenelles j. d.

4

1523.  Ld. Berners, Froiss., I. xvii. 19. Whan the plate is hote, they cast of the thyn paste theron, and so make a lytle cake in maner of a crakenell, or bysket.

5

1530.  Palsgr., 210/2. Crackenell, cracquelin.

6

1577.  trans. Bullinger’s Decades (1592), 369. That oblation was … a bowed peece of breade (which we call a cracknell) baked in an ouen.

7

1611.  Bible, 1 Kings xiv. 3. Take with thee ten loaues, and cracknels, and a cruse of honie.

8

1706.  Phillips (ed. Kersey), Cracknels, a sort of Cakes made in shape of a Dish, and bak’d hard, so as to crackle under the Teeth.

9

1880.  Beaconsfield, Endym., lxxxix. 413. Plum cakes … and no end of cracknels.

10

1884.  Punch, 23 Feb., 85/1. Crisp as a cracknel by Huntley and Palmer.

11

  attrib.  1620.  Unton Invent., 27. One little cracknell boule.

12

  2.  pl. Small pieces of fat pork fried crisp. (local Eng. and U.S.) Cf. CRACKLING 3 b.

13

  3.  = CRACKLE 3, CRACKLING 5. rare.

14

1821.  T. G. Wainewright, Ess. & Crit. (1880), 221–2. And other crockery, both cracknell and green dragon.

15