crackers

C3R1A1C3K5E1R1S1

noun

A kind of noisy leather pants or trousers.

Less commonScrabble 16

Meanings

noun
  1. pluralplural of cracker
nouncrackers pl (plural only)
  1. South Africapluralplural onlyA kind of noisy leather pants or trousers.

    Sheepskin trousers—which, from the sound they make at every movement of the wearer, are called ‘crackers’.

    1849, E.E. Napier, Excursions in Southern Africa, volume II, page 13
  2. pluralplural onlyslangTesticles.
adjectivecrackers (comparative more crackers, superlative most crackers)

comparative more crackers · superlative most crackers

  1. UKcolloquialCrazy, insane.

    “I will call up Demons to destroy thee!” “You're crackers,” said Carrot, backing away.

    1970, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 28
    2 more examples

    He acknowledges that it must seem "a crackers thing to say", but given the substantial progress which has been made in other areas of the business, his optimism isn't without foundation.

    2021 May 5, Graeme Pickering, “Managing Metro's morphosis”, in RAIL, number 930, page 52

    Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser, told the online magazine UnHerd in May that Truss was “as close to properly crackers as anybody I have met in parliament” and would be an “even worse” prime minister than Johnson.

    2022 July 30, Dominic Cummings, quotee, “‘Ambition greater than ability’: Liz Truss’s rise from teen Lib Dem to would-be PM”, in The Guardian

    Synonyms: 5150, bananas, barking, barking mad, fey, buggish, buggy, bughouse

Synonyms & antonyms

More synonyms by meaning

Synonym sets from Open English WordNet, CC BY 4.0.

Origin

From cracker + -s. The South African sense is from their sound and its status as a plurale tantum by association with trousers. The adjectival sense derives from British naval expressions referring to firecrackers in one's head, originally as "he's got the crackers" and then "he's gone crackers" before the present "he is crackers".

Full word history & related roots →
Cite this entry
APA

crackers. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 2, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/crackers

MLA

“crackers.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/crackers. Accessed November 2, 2026.

Chicago

WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “crackers,” accessed November 2, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/crackers.

Source: crackers on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.