the.com/crack
the sound, the drug, the joke, the flaw — same word, wildly different stakes
means To break, snap, or fracture with a sharp sound — or, as a noun, that sudden sharp sound itself, a narrow gap or flaw, a sly joke, or slang for a smokable form of cocaine.
from From Old English 'cracian,' to make a sharp ringing sound, and a cousin of Dutch 'kraken' and German 'krachen' — all of them echoing the noise itself, the kind of word linguists call onomatopoeic. The meaning kept fissuring over the centuries: from the sound to the split that makes the sound, to a flaw or gap, to a sharp witty remark (a 'wisecrack'), to 'crack of dawn.' The drug sense is recent and concrete — 1980s American slang, named for the crackling pop the substance makes when smoked.
- sound origin
- named for the crackling noise it makes when smoked
- hairline danger
- tiny cracks sink ships and ground entire jet fleets
- crack of dawn
- refers to the first split of light at horizon
- sidewalk superstition
- step on a crack, break your mother's back
- Liberty Bell
- America's icon is famous for being cracked
san francisco earthquake 1906 — magnitude 7.9 earthquake created a massive crack in the earth's crust along the san andreas fault
great rift valley — 6,000 km crack in the earth's crust stretching from syria to mozambique, formed by tectonic plate movement
liberty bell — philadelphia's famous bell from 1752 with a prominent crack running down its side