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cracked up

  1. cracked up to be . Reputed to be. This expression is always used in a negative way, as in I don't think this book is all it's cracked up to be . It relies on the now obsolete use of to crack up to mean “to praise extravagantly.” It appeared in The Kentuckian : “He is not the thing he is cracked up for” (May 28, 1829). [Early 1800s]

  2. Under the influence of crack (a form of cocaine). For example, “Who's cracked up, who's cracked out, and who's dead?” ( World News Tonight , ABC-TV, May 12, 1992). [1980s]

  3. Past tense of crack up .



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Example Sentences

Working with him, too, he cracked up a couple of times with what I was doing in the scene-work.

"I'm delighted to hear that, as we know this week what happens when it's two," Bono shot back as the crowd cracked up.

The Macedonian empire quickly cracked up, however, leaving behind multiple successor states under Greek-speaking royal families.

So we got an actual object to simulate the activity and it cracked up everybody in the room.

In a number of interviews over the years, Kelly admitted to Spoto that royalty was not all that it was cracked up to be.

Following the bellow of the rifle, so loud in that thin air, a sharp, harsh report cracked up from below.

So when you cracked up and Dad and Phil went on the dead run to help, they caught a perception of it.

But shes been kinder pinin lately; I reckon she needs a changethough a change isnt always what its cracked up to be.

I cal'late you reckon the Markerstown's about played out, an' a'n't exackly wut she's cracked up to be.

Yes; that's exactly what sets me wondering; the fellow should have cracked up by all the rules of the game.

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