Fromcrack +-er. Fromcrack(verb), the sound made when one is broken. The hard "bread" and "biscuit" sense is first attested in 1739. The computing senses ofcracker,crack, andcracking were promoted in the 1980s as an alternative tohacker, by programmers concerned about negative public associations ofhack,hacking(“creative computer coding”). SeeCitations:cracker. Various theories exist regarding the term's application to poor white Southerners. One theory holds that it originated with disadvantaged corn and wheat farmers (corncrackers), whocracked their crops rather than taking them to the mill. Another theory asserts that it was applied due to Georgia and Florida settlers (Florida crackers) whocracked loud whips to drive herds of cattle, or, alternatively, from the whip cracking of plantation slave drivers. Yet another theory maintains that the termcracker was in use inElizabethan times to describe braggarts (seecrack(“to boast”)); a letter from 1766 supports this theory.[1][2][3]
1929 February 10,The Sunday Times, Sydney, page26, column 7:
There was feasting and joy from Shanghai to the Wall, What with dim-sims, chop-suey andcrackers and all, And the donor of these, by the hook of my crook. Was Chiang Ki-Konglong, the Mandarin Cook.
A short piece of twistedstring tied to the end of awhip that creates the distinctive sound when the whip is thrown orcracked.
2011 January 15, Saj Chowdhury, “Man City 4 - 3 Wolves”, inBBC[1]:
And just before the interval, Kolarov, who was having one of his better games in a City shirt, fizzed in acracker from 30 yards which the Wolves stopper unconvincingly pushed behind for a corner.
An ambitious or hard-working person (i.e. someone who arises at the 'crack' of dawn).
(computing) One whocracks (i.e. overcomes) computer software or security restrictions.
1984, Richard Sedric Fox Eells, Peter Raymond Nehemkis,Corporate Intelligence and Espionage: A Blueprint for Executive Decision Making, Macmillan, page137:
It stated to one of the company's operators, “The Phantom, the systemcracker, strikes again . . . Soon I will zero (expletive deleted) your desks and your backups on System A. I have already cracked your System B.
2002, Steve Jones,Encyclopedia of New Media, page1925:
Likewise, early software pirates and "crackers" often used phrases like "information wants to be free" to protest the regulations against the copying of proprietary software packages and computer systems.
Check this shit: You gotcracker farm boy Luke Skywalker, Nazi poster boy, blond hair, blue eyes. And then you got Darth Vader, the blackest brother in the galaxy, Nubian god!
^Gavin Cochrane (1766 June 27)Letter to theEarl of Dartmouth: “I should explain to your Lordship what is meant by crackers; a name they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless set of rascalls on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas and Georgia, who often change their places of abode.”
cracker on Wikipedia.Wikipedia