corn-cracker

plural corn-crackers · alternative corn cracker · alternative corncracker

1. USdatedderogatorymildlyA lower-class white person in the Southern United States.

   Our summons was answered by its owner, a well-to-do, substantial, middle-aged planter, wearing the ordinary homespun of the district, but evidently of a station in life much above the common "corn-crackers" I had seen at the country meeting-house.

   1862, James R. Gilmore, chapter 12, in Among the Pines, or, South in Secession Time

   Synonyms: cracker

2. USdatedAn agricultural machine for cracking corn kernels.

   A subscriber at Burnsville inquires for a corn cracker which he can work by attaching it to Warren's horse power. There is a corn cracker made here, but it is not a very superior machine.

   1847 August, The Prairie Farmer, Volumes 6-8, "Editor's Table", p. 261 (Google books)