Word: cracker Part of Speech: noun Etymology: From Middle English craker (“a boaster”), equivalent to crack (“to break, snap, utter, make a sound”) + -er. From crack (verb), the sound made when one is broken. The hard "bread" and "biscuit" sense is first attested in 1739. The computing senses of cracker, crack, and cracking were promoted in the 1980s as an alternative to hacker, by programmers concerned about negative public associations of hack, hacking (“creative computer coding”). See Citations:cracker. Various theories exist regarding the term's application to poor white Southerners. One theory holds that it originated with disadvantaged corn and wheat farmers (corncrackers), who cracked their crops rather than taking them to the mill. Another theory asserts that it was applied due to Georgia and Florida settlers (Florida crackers) who cracked loud whips to drive herds of cattle, or, alternatively, from the whip cracking of plantation slave drivers. Yet another theory maintains that the term cracker was in use in Elizabethan times to describe braggarts (see crack (“to boast”)); a letter from 1766 supports this theory. Pronunciation: /ˈkɹækə(ɹ)/ 1. A noisy boaster; a swaggering fellow. Labels: obsolete Example: What cracker is this same that deafs our ears? 2. A dry, thin, crispy baked bread (usually salty or savoury, but sometimes sweet, as in the case of graham crackers and animal crackers). 3. A prawn cracker. Example: There was feasting and joy from Shanghai to the Wall, What with dim-sims, chop-suey and crackers and all, And the donor of these, by the hook of my crook. Was Chiang Ki-Konglong, the Mandarin Cook. 4. The final section of certain whips, which is made of a short, thin piece of unravelled rope, or which is a short piece of twisted string tied to the end of the whip, which produces a distinctive cracking sound when the whip is cracked. 5. A firecracker. 6. A Christmas cracker. Example: It is customary in every part of China to fire off crackers on the last day and night of the year for the purpose of terrifying expelling the devils. 7. A northern pintail, a dabbling duck of species Anas acuta. Labels: UK 8. A person or thing that breaks a thing (e.g., nutcracker). Example: a lobster and crab shell cracker 9. A person or thing that breaks a thing (e.g., nutcracker). 10. A person or thing that breaks a thing (e.g., nutcracker). Labels: obsolete 11. A person or thing that breaks a thing (e.g., nutcracker). Example: It stated to one of the company's operators, “The Phantom, the system cracker, strikes again . . . Soon I will zero (expletive deleted) your desks and your backups on System A. I have already cracked your System B. Example: Likewise, early software pirates and "crackers" often used phrases like "information wants to be free" to protest the regulations against the copying of proprietary software packages and computer systems. 12. A fine, great thing or person (crackerjack). Labels: Australia, Ireland, New-Zealand, UK, slang Example: She's an absolute cracker! Example: The show was a cracker! 13. An ambitious or hard-working person (i.e. someone who arises at the 'crack' of dawn). 14. An impoverished white person from the southeastern United States, originally associated with Georgia and parts of Florida; (by extension) any white person (slang). Labels: US, derogatory, ethnic, offensive, slur Example: Brothers and the whiteys / Blacks and the crackers / Police and their backers / They're all political actors Example: Check this shit: You got cracker farm boy Luke Skywalker, Nazi poster boy, blond hair, blue eyes. And then you got Darth Vader, the blackest brother in the galaxy, Nubian god!