cracked, ppl. a.
(krækt)
Forms: (5 crachyd), 6–8 crackt, crack'd, 7– -ed.
[f. crack v. + -ed1.]
1. a. Broken by a sharp blow.
| [c 1440 Bone Flor. 2027 He stode schakyng, the sothe to sayne, Crokyd and crachyd thertoo.] 1562 J. Heywood Prov. & Epigr. (1867) 201 Not woorth a crakt nut. 1596 Shakes. 1. Hen. IV, ii. iii. 96 We must haue bloodie Noses, and crack'd Crownes. |
b. Of corn, etc.: crushed, kibbled, or broken roughly into small pieces. U.S.
| 1833 J. Boardman America 16 Cracked corn is broken maize. 1856 Olmsted Slave States 477 The cracked rice (broken in the process of removing the hull). 1882 ‘M. Harland’ Eve's Daughters 444 Cracked wheat, corn bread, Indian meal gruel. 1945 Mass. Audubon Soc. Bull. Feb. 5 Cracked corn is appealing to many species [of bird]. 1949 A. R. Daniel Bakers' Dict. s.v. Cracked wheat bread, When moulded the pieces [of dough] are rolled in more of the cracked wheat. 1977 Transatlantic Rev. lx. 66 He served her..buttered cracked-wheat toast with the crusts trimmed off. 1982 J. Grigson Fruit Bk. 31 Kibbled or cracked wheat..cooks to a moist rich graininess which is ideal for duck. |
c. cracked cocoa U.S. = cocoa-nibs (cocoa 4).
| 1934 in Webster. 1939 J. P. Marquand Wickford Point xvi. 172 Supper..usually consisted of pale scrambled eggs and toast and cracked cocoa. |
2. a. Burst asunder, fissured, full of cracks.
| 1570 Levins Manip. 49/10 Cracked, rimosus. 1577 tr. Bullinger's Decades Pref., A ship..so rent with rocks, so crackt and vtterly decaied. 1806 Med. Jrnl. XV. 116 Their tongue is red, dry, and cracked. 1837 Dickens Pickw. iii, The lips were parched and cracked in many places. Mod. The parched and cracked soil of the plain. |
b. cracked heel (esp. in horses): see scratch n.1 2 a, grease n. 3.
| 1850 H. Beasley Druggist's Gen. Receipt Book 93 (heading) Ointments for..cracked heels. 1886 G. Fleming Pract. Horse Keeper 96 A predisposition to cracked heels is engendered by clipping the legs and pasterns in winter. 1898 F. T. Barton Our Friend the Horse 193 Cracked Heels... The result of irritation through sand, wet, etc. 1908 Animal Management (War Office) 66 Chapping... When confined to the hollow of the heel, the condition is called ‘cracked’ or ‘greasy heel’. |
3. Broken without separation of parts, fractured; partially broken so as to be no longer sound.
| 1503 Act 19 Hen. VII, c. 5 Half Groats..being Silver (howbeit they be cracked) shall..be current. a 1631 Drayton Triumph David, His brazen armour gaue a iarring sound Like a crackt bell. 1685 Gracian's Courtiers Orac. 173 The crackt pot seldom breaks. 1817 Shelley Hate 2 He took an old cracked lute. 1879 Tennyson Falcon, But one piece of earthenware..and that cracked! |
4. fig. Damaged, having flaws; impaired or unsound in constitution, moral character, reputation, etc., blemished; † bankrupt (obs.).
| 1527 St. Papers Henry VIII, I. 278 Contynuyng my jorneys..withe suche diligence, as myn olde and cracked body may endure. c 1575 Fulke Confut. Doct. Purgatory (1577) 395 His cracked credit is nothing regarded of vs. 1609 Dekker Gulls Horne-bk. 25 Stammering out a most false and crackt Latin oration. 1632 Rowley Woman never vext in Hazl. Dodsley XII. 167 These two crack'd gallants Are in several bonds..For a debt of full two thousand a-piece. 1680 Lond. Gaz. No. 1564/4 Two Geldings, one of them black..his Wind a little crack'd. 1688 Miege Fr. Dict. s.v., Crackt..qui a fait banqueroute. 1704 Swift Project Adv. Relig., A cracked chambermaid. 1824 W. Irving T. Trav. II. 39 A masculine widow, of cracked character. |
5. Of the brain, mind, etc.: Unsound, impaired, somewhat deranged. Of a person: Unsound in mind, slightly insane, crazy. Phr. to be cracked about or on, to be infatuated with. (Now colloq.)
| 1611 Cotgr., Estropié de caboche, ou de ceruelle, frantick, witlesse, braine-sicke, brain-crackt. 1614 Bp. Hall Recollect. Treat. 758 That which this man was wont so oft to object to his brother (a crackt braine). 1692 Locke Educ. Wks. 1812 IX. 165 Would you not think him a little cracked? 1705 Vanbrugh Confed. ii. i, You are as studious as a crack'd Chymist. 1775 Johnson 18 Apr. in Boswell, I never could see why Sir Roger is represented as a little cracked. 1825 S. Woodworth Forest Rose 29 Poor fellow! He is a little crack'd I calculate. 1844 Darwin in Life & Lett. (1887) II. 29, I must have been cracked to have written it, for I have no evidence. 1874 H. Maudsley Respons. in Ment. Dis. ii. 49 They were cracked, but as it has been remarked, the crack let in light. 1874 ‘S. Coolidge’ What Katy did at School iii. 46 He's an elegant fellow. All the girls are cracked about him—perfectly cracked! 1960 Spectator 1 July 15/2, I brought myself to carry the English mistress's books—this was..usually done by girls who were ‘cracked’ on this woman or that. 1968 D. Hopkinson Incense Tree iv. 40 It was almost a social obligation to be ‘cracked’ on someone. 1968 [see crackedness]. |
6. Of the voice: Sounding like a cracked bell, broken in musical quality or clearness.
| 1739 Gray Lett. Wks. (1884) II. 22 Imagine..all this transacted by cracked voices. 1789 Burney Hist. Mus. IV. 522 Old Cuzzoni, who sung..with a thin crackt voice. 1834 Medwin Angler in Wales II. 173 Shelley's [voice] was equally extraordinary, being what I should call a cracked soprano. 1851 Hawthorne Ho. Sev. Gables xvii, The cracked jarring note. |
7. Comb.: see crack-brained, crack-winded.
8. (See crack v. 23.)