cracksman

plural cracksmen

1. archaicinformalA burglar or safebreaker.

   The fraudulent clerk and the flash “cracksman” interchanged experiences.

   1874, Marcus Clarke, For the Term of his Natural Life, Penguin, published 2009, page 52

   2 more examples

   She was frankly disappointed. For some reason she had expected to discover a burglar of one or another accepted type—either a dashing cracksman in full-blown evening dress, lithe, polished, pantherish, or a common yegg, a red-eyed, unshaven, burly brute in the rags and tatters of a tramp.

   1914 November, Louis Joseph Vance, “An Outsider […]”, in Munsey’s Magazine, volume LIII, number II, New York, N.Y.: The Frank A[ndrew] Munsey Company, […], published 1915, →OCLC, chapter III (Accessory After the Fact), page 382, column 2

   The bank cracksmen who looted the national bank at Northampton were traced by a piece of wrapping paper picked up in an abandoned schoolhouse.

   1916, Melville Davisson Post, “The Man Hunters”, in The Saturday Evening Post