Dictionary
Thesaurus
Encyclopedia
Translator
Web
Related Searches
Synonyms
Nearby Words

cracker

 - 9 dictionary results

crack⋅er

  [krak-er]
Use cracker in a Sentence
–noun
1. a thin, crisp biscuit.
2. a firecracker.
3. Also called cracker bonbon. a small paper roll used as a party favor, that usually contains candy, trinkets, etc., and that pops when pulled sharply at one or both ends.
4. (initial capital letter) Sometimes Disparaging and Offensive. a native or inhabitant of Georgia (used as a nickname).
5. Slang: Disparaging and Offensive. a poor white person living in some rural parts of the southeastern U.S.
6. snapper (def. 5).
7. braggart; boaster.
8. a person or thing that cracks.
9. a chemical reactor used for cracking. Compare catalytic cracking, fractionator.
–adjective
10. crackers, Informal. wild; crazy: They went crackers over the new styles.
Origin:
1400–50; late ME craker. See crack, -er 1 ; (defs. 4–5) perh. orig. in sense “braggart,” applied to frontiersmen of the southern American colonies in the 1760s, though subsequently given other interpretations (cf. corn-cracker ); for crackers crazy, cf. cracked, -ers

crack

  [krak]
–verb (used without object)
1. to break without complete separation of parts; become fissured: The plate cracked when I dropped it, but it was still usable.
2. to break with a sudden, sharp sound: The branch cracked under the weight of the snow.
3. to make a sudden, sharp sound in or as if in breaking; snap: The whip cracked.
4. (of the voice) to break abruptly and discordantly, esp. into an upper register, as because of weariness or emotion.
5. to fail; give way: His confidence cracked under the strain.
6. to succumb or break down, esp. under severe psychological pressure, torture, or the like: They questioned him steadily for 24 hours before he finally cracked.
7. Chemistry. to decompose as a result of being subjected to heat.
8. Chiefly South Midland and Southern U.S. to brag; boast.
9. Chiefly Scot. to chat; gossip.
–verb (used with object)
10. to cause to make a sudden sharp sound: The driver cracked the whip.
11. to break without complete separation of parts; break into fissures.
12. to break with a sudden, sharp sound: to crack walnuts.
13. to strike and thereby make a sharp noise: The boxer cracked his opponent on the jaw.
14. to induce or cause to be stricken with sorrow or emotion; affect deeply.
15. to utter or tell: to crack jokes.
16. to cause to make a cracking sound: to crack one's knuckles.
17. to damage, weaken, etc.: The new evidence against him cracked his composure.
18. to make mentally unsound.
19. to make (the voice) harsh or unmanageable.
20. to solve; decipher: to crack a murder case.
21. Informal. to break into (a safe, vault, etc.).
22. Chemistry. to subject to the process of cracking, as in the distillation of petroleum.
23. Informal. to open and drink (a bottle of wine, liquor, beer, etc.).
–noun
24. a break without complete separation of parts; fissure.
25. a slight opening, as between boards in a floor or wall, or between a door and its doorpost.
26. a sudden, sharp noise, as of something breaking.
27. the snap of or as of a whip.
28. a resounding blow: He received a terrific crack on the head when the branch fell.
29. Informal. a witty or cutting remark; wisecrack.
30. a break or change in the flow or tone of the voice.
31. Informal. opportunity; chance; try: Give him first crack at the new job.
32. a flaw or defect.
33. Also called rock. Slang. pellet-size pieces of highly purified cocaine, prepared with other ingredients for smoking, and known to be especially potent and addicting.
34. Masonry. check 1 (def. 41).
35. a mental defect or deficiency.
36. a shot, as with a rifle: At the first crack, the deer fell.
37. a moment; instant: He was on his feet again in a crack.
38. Slang. a burglary, esp. an instance of housebreaking.
39. Chiefly British. a person or thing that excels in some respect.
40. Slang: Vulgar. the vulva.
41. Chiefly Scot. conversation; chat.
42. British Dialect. boasting; braggadocio.
43. Archaic. a burglar.
–adjective
44. first-rate; excellent: a crack shot.
–adverb
45. with a cracking sound.
—Verb phrases
46. crack down, to take severe or stern measures, esp. in enforcing obedience to laws or regulations: The police are starting to crack down on local drug dealers.
47. crack off, to cause (a piece of hot glass) to fall from a blowpipe or punty.
48. crack on, Nautical.
a. (of a sailing vessel) to sail in high winds under sails that would normally be furled.
b. (of a power vessel) to advance at full speed in heavy weather.
49. crack up, Informal.
a. to suffer a mental or emotional breakdown.
b. to crash, as in an automobile or airplane: He skidded into the telephone pole and cracked up.
c. to wreck an automobile, airplane, or other vehicle.
d. to laugh or to cause to laugh unrestrainedly: That story about the revolving door really cracked me up. Ed cracked up, too, when he heard it.
—Idioms
50. crack a book, Informal. to open a book in order to study or read: He hardly ever cracked a book.
51. crack a smile, Informal. to smile.
52. crack wise, Slang. to wisecrack: We tried to be serious, but he was always cracking wise.
53. fall through the cracks, to be overlooked, missed, or neglected: In any inspection process some defective materials will fall through the cracks. Also, slip between the cracks.
54. get cracking, Informal.
a. to begin moving or working; start: Let's get cracking on these dirty dishes!
b. to work or move more quickly.
Origin:
bef. 1000; ME crak(k)en (v.), crak (n.), OE cracian to resound; akin to G krachen, D kraken (v.), and G Krach, D krak (n.)

Related forms:
crack⋅a⋅ble, adjective
crackless, adjective
Dictionary.com Unabridged
Based on the Random House Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2009.
Cite This Source Link To cracker
crack·er   (krāk'ər)   
n.  

  1. A thin crisp wafer or biscuit, usually made of unsweetened dough.

  2. One that cracks, especially:

    1. A firecracker.

    2. A small cardboard cylinder covered with decorative paper that holds candy or a party favor and pops when a paper strip is pulled at one or both ends and torn.

    3. The apparatus used in the cracking of petroleum.

    4. One who makes unauthorized use of a computer, especially to tamper with data or programs.

    5. Used as a disparaging term for a poor white person of the rural, especially southeast United States.

    6. Used as a disparaging term for a white person.

  3. Offensive

    1. Used as a disparaging term for a poor white person of the rural, especially southeast United States.

    2. Used as a disparaging term for a white person.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2009 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.
Cite This Source
Main Entry:  cracker
Part of Speech:  n
Definition:  See Christmas cracker
Dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon
Copyright © 2003-2009 Dictionary.com, LLC
Cite This Source
Slang Dictionary
crack

  1. n.
    the gap between the buttocks. : You wanna get kicked in the crack?
  2. n.
    the gap between the lips of the vulva. (Usually objectionable. See also crack-rack.) : He screamed something rude about her crack and slapped her.
  3. n.
    women considered as the object of copulation and male sexual release. (Usually with some. Rude and derogatory.) : Jed said he had to have some crack soon or he would die.
  4. n.
    a joke; a smart-aleck remark. : Another crack like that and your nose will be so reshaped.
  5. n.
    a try (that may or may not succeed). : Have another crack at it.
  6. n.
    a unit of something (for a particular price); a use (of something). : You would think twice, too, if you remembered that it's seven dollars a crack.
  7. n.
    crystalline, smokable cocaine. (Drugs.) : This crack seems to have become the drug of choice for punks of all ages.
  8. in.
    to break down and talk under pressure. (Underworld.) : They kept at her till she finally cracked and talked.
  9. mod.
    [of a person] excellent; top-flight. : The dealer's crack salesman was no help at all.
  10. tv.
    to break into something. (Underworld.) : We almost cracked the safe before the alarm went off.
Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions by Richard A. Spears.Fourth Edition.
Copyright 2007. Published by McGraw Hill.
Cite This Source
Word Origin & History

crack 
O.E. cracian "make a sharp noise," from P.Gmc. *krakojan, probably onomatopoeic. The noun meaning "split, opening," is 14c. Meaning "try, attempt" first attested 1836, probably a hunting metaphor, from slang sense of "fire a gun." Meaning "rock cocaine" is first attested 1985. Cracked "mentally unsound" is 17c. (though the equivalent Gk. word was used in this sense by Aristophanes), while crack as in "top-notch, superior" is slang from 1793. Crackpot "pretentious, worthless person" dates from 1883. The superstition that it is bad luck to step on sidewalk cracks has been traced to c.1890.

cracker 
1440, "hard wafer," but the specific application to a thin, crisp biscuit is 1739. Cracker-barrel (adj.) "emblematic of down-home ways and views" is from 1877. Cracker, Southern U.S. derogatory term for "poor, white trash" (1766), is from c.1450 crack "to boast" (e.g. not what it's cracked up to be), originally a Scottish word. Especially of Georgians by 1808, though often extended to residents of northern Florida.
"I should explain to your Lordship what is meant by crackers; a name they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless set of rascalls on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas and Georgia, who often change their places of abode." [1766, G. Cochrane]
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
Cite This Source
Medical Dictionary

Main Entry: crack
Pronunciation: 'krak
Function: noun
often attributive : a potent form of cocaine that is obtained by treating the hydrochloride ofcocaine with sodium bicarbonate to create small chips used illicitly usually for smoking
Merriam-Webster's Medical Dictionary, © 2002 Merriam-Webster, Inc.
Cite This Source
Computing Dictionary

cracker jargon
An individual who attempts to gain unauthorised access to a computer system. These individuals are often malicious and have many means at their disposal for breaking into a system. The term was coined ca. 1985 by hackers in defence against journalistic misuse of "hacker". An earlier attempt to establish "worm" in this sense around 1981--82 on Usenet was largely a failure.
Use of both these neologisms reflects a strong revulsion against the theft and vandalism perpetrated by cracking rings. The neologism "cracker" in this sense may have been influenced not so much by the term "safe-cracker" as by the non-jargon term "cracker", which in Middle English meant an obnoxious person (e.g., "What cracker is this same that deafs our ears / With this abundance of superfluous breath?" -- Shakespeare's King John, Act II, Scene I) and in modern colloquial American English survives as a barely gentler synonym for "white trash".
While it is expected that any real hacker will have done some playful cracking and knows many of the basic techniques, anyone past larval stage is expected to have outgrown the desire to do so except for immediate practical reasons (for example, if it's necessary to get around some security in order to get some work done).
Contrary to widespread myth, cracking does not usually involve some mysterious leap of hackerly brilliance, but rather persistence and the dogged repetition of a handful of fairly well-known tricks that exploit common weaknesses in the security of target systems. Accordingly, most crackers are only mediocre hackers.
Thus, there is far less overlap between hackerdom and crackerdom than the mundane reader misled by sensationalistic journalism might expect. Crackers tend to gather in small, tight-knit, very secretive groups that have little overlap with the huge, open hacker poly-culture; though crackers often like to describe *themselves* as hackers, most true hackers consider them a separate and lower form of life, little better than virus writers. Ethical considerations aside, hackers figure that anyone who can't imagine a more interesting way to play with their computers than breaking into someone else's has to be pretty losing.
See also Computer Emergency Response Team, dark-side hacker, hacker ethic, phreaking, samurai, Trojan horse.
[The Jargon File]
(1998-06-29)

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, © 1993-2007 Denis Howe
Cite This Source
Search another word or see cracker on Thesaurus | Reference
FacebookTwitterFollow us:
Partner Sites:
Ask AnswersEviteExpediaHotelsHotwireLife123LiveDailyMy Way