cracker

plural crackers

1. obsoleteA noisy boaster; a swaggering fellow.

   What cracker is this same that deafs our ears?

   c. 1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Life and Death of King Iohn”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]

2. A dry, thin, crispy baked bread (usually salty or savoury, but sometimes sweet, as in the case of graham crackers and animal crackers).

   Synonyms: biscuit

3. A prawn cracker.

   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.

   1929 February 10, The Sunday Times, Sydney, page 26, column 7

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.

   Synonyms: popper, snapper

5. A firecracker.
6. A Christmas cracker.

   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.

   1911, James George Frazer, The Golden Bough, volume 9, page 146

7. UKA northern pintail, a dabbling duck of species Anas acuta.
8. A person or thing that breaks a thing (e.g., nutcracker).

   a lobster and crab shell cracker

   1. Refinery equipment used to pyrolyse organic feedstocks. If catalyst is used to aid pyrolysis it is informally called a cat-cracker
   2. obsoleteA pair of fluted rolls for grinding caoutchouc.
   3. computingOne who cracks (i.e. overcomes) computer software or security restrictions.

      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.

      2002, Steve Jones, Encyclopedia of New Media, page 1925

      1 more 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.

      1984, Richard Sedric Fox Eells, Peter Raymond Nehemkis, Corporate Intelligence and Espionage: A Blueprint for Executive Decision Making, Macmillan, page 137

      Synonyms: black hat, hacker

9. AustraliaIrelandNew ZealandUKslangA fine, great thing or person (crackerjack).

   A cracker of a day.

   3 more examples

   She's an absolute cracker!

   The show was a cracker!

   And just before the interval, Kolarov, who was having one of his better games in a City shirt, fizzed in a cracker from 30 yards which the Wolves stopper unconvincingly pushed behind for a corner.

   2011 January 15, Saj Chowdhury, “Man City 4 - 3 Wolves”, in BBC

10. An ambitious or hard-working person (i.e. someone who arises at the 'crack' of dawn).
11. USderogatoryethnicoffensiveslurAn impoverished white person from the southeastern United States, originally associated with Georgia and parts of Florida; (by extension) any white person (slang).

    “You know that old cracker beat them boys.”

    2019, Colson Whitehead, The Nickel Boys, Fleet, page 202

    2 more examples

    Brothers and the whiteys / Blacks and the crackers / Police and their backers / They're all political actors

    1970, “(Don't Worry) If There's a Hell Below, We're All Going to Go”, in Curtis, performed by Curtis Mayfield

    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!

    1997, Kevin Smith, Chasing Amy, spoken by Hooper (Dwight Ewell)

    Synonyms: corn-cracker, honky, peckerwood, redneck, trailer trash, white trash, whitey, wonderbread