Adjacent Words

Cracking definitions

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Webster's 1828 Dictionary

CRACKING,ppr. Breaking or dividing partially; opening; impairing; snapping; uttering a sudden sharp or loud sound; boasting; casting jokes.

WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

adj
1: very good; "he did a bully job"; "a neat sports car"; "had a great time at the party"; "you look simply smashing" [syn: bang-up, bully, corking, cracking, dandy, great, groovy, keen, neat, nifty, not bad, peachy, slap-up, swell, smashing] n
1: a sudden sharp noise; "the crack of a whip"; "he heard the cracking of the ice"; "he can hear the snap of a twig" [syn: crack, cracking, snap]
2: the act of cracking something [syn: fracture, crack, cracking]
3: the process whereby heavy molecules of naphtha or petroleum are broken down into hydrocarbons of lower molecular weight (especially in the oil-refining process)

Merriam Webster's

I. adjective Date: 1830 very impressive or effective ; great II. adverb Date: 1903 very, extremely <a cracking good book> III. noun Date: 1868 a process in which relatively heavy hydrocarbons are broken up by heat into lighter products (as gasoline)

Oxford Reference Dictionary

adj. & adv. sl. --adj. 1 outstanding; very good (a cracking performance). 2 (attrib.) fast and exciting (a cracking speed). --adv. outstandingly (a cracking good time).

Webster's 1913 Dictionary

Crack Crack (kr[a^]k), v. t. [imp. & p. p. Cracked (kr[a^]kt); p. pr. & vb. n. Cracking.] [OE. cracken, craken, to crack, break, boast, AS. cracian, cearcian, to crack; akin to D. kraken, G. krachen; cf. Skr. garj to rattle, or perh. of imitative origin. Cf. Crake, Cracknel, Creak.] 1. To break or burst, with or without entire separation of the parts; as, to crack glass; to crack nuts. 2. To rend with grief or pain; to affect deeply with sorrow; hence, to disorder; to distract; to craze. O, madam, my old heart is cracked. --Shak. He thought none poets till their brains were cracked. --Roscommon. 3. To cause to sound suddenly and sharply; to snap; as, to crack a whip. 4. To utter smartly and sententiously; as, to crack a joke. --B. Jonson. 5. To cry up; to extol; -- followed by up. [Low] To crack a bottle, to open the bottle and drink its contents. To crack a crib, to commit burglary. [Slang] To crack on, to put on; as, to crack on more sail, or more steam. [Colloq.]

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

1. You use cracking to describe something you think is very good or exciting. (BRIT INFORMAL) It's a cracking novel... = great, brilliant ADJ: usu ADJ n 2. If you tell someone to get cracking, you are telling them to start doing something immediately. (BRIT INFORMAL) Mark, you'd better get cracking, the sooner the better... PHRASE: get inflects