cracker

noun14

1. •
   A dry, thin, crispy baked bread (usually salty or savoury, but sometimes sweet, as in the case of graham crackers and animal crackers).
2. •
   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
3. •
   A firecracker.
4. •
   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
5. •
   (UK, slang) A fine, great thing or person (crackerjack).

   • She's an absolute cracker!
   • The show was a cracker!
6. •
   A person or thing that breaks a thing (e.g., nutcracker).
7. •
   Refinery equipment used to pyrolyse organic feedstocks. If catalyst is used to aid pyrolysis it is informally called a cat-cracker
8. •
   One who cracks (i.e. overcomes) computer software or security restrictions.
9. •
   (US, offensive) An impoverished white person from the southeastern United States, originally associated with Georgia and parts of Florida; (by extension) any white person (slang).

   • Brothers and the whiteys / Blacks and the crackers / Police and their backers / They're all political actors — 1970
10. •
    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.
11. •
    An ambitious or hard-working person (i.e. someone who arises at the 'crack' of dawn).
12. •
    (UK) A northern pintail, a dabbling duck of species Anas acuta.
13. •
    (no longer used) A pair of fluted rolls for grinding caoutchouc.
14. •
    (no longer used) A noisy boaster; a swaggering fellow.

    • What cracker is this same that deafs our ears? — 1596