Cracked

ppl. a. Forms: (5 crachyd), 6–8 crackt, crack’d, 7– -ed. [f. CRACK v. + -ED¹.]

  1.  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.  Shaks., 1 Hen. IV., II. iii. 96. We must haue bloodie Noses, and crack’d Crownes.

1856.  Olmsted, Slave States, 477. The cracked rice (broken in the process of removing the hull).

  2.  Burst asunder, fissured, full of cracks.

1570.  Levins, Manip., 49/10. Cracked, rimosus.

1577.  trans. 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, Pickwick, iii. The lips were parched and cracked in many places.

Mod.  The parched and cracked soil of the plain.

  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 to my predecessor 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.  Miége, 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. (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 April, in Boswell. I never could see why Sir Roger is represented as a little cracked.

1844.  Darwin, in Life & Lett. (1887), II. 29. I must have been cracked to have written it, for I have no evidence.

1874.  Maudsley, Respons. in Ment. Dis., ii. 49. They were cracked, but, as it has been remarked, the crack let in light.

  6.  Of the voice: Sounding like a cracked bell, broken in musical quality or clearness.

1739.  Gray, Lett., Wks. (1884), II. 22. Imagine, I say, all this transacted by cracked voices.

1789.  Burney, Hist. Mus., IV. 522. Old Cuzzoni, who sung in it with a thin cracked voice.

1834.  Medwin, Angler in Wales, II. 172–3. Shelley’s [voice] was equally extraordinary, being what I should call a cracked soprano.

1851.  Hawthorne, Ho. Sev. Gables, xvii. 272. As the cracked jarring note might always be heard.

  7.  Comb.: see CRACK-BRAINED, CRACK-WINDED.