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Crack

,

as a crack man, a first-rate fellow; a crack hand at cards, a first-rate player; a crack article, an excellent one, i.e. an article cracked up or boasted about. This is the Latin crepo, to crack or boast about. Hence Lucretius ii. 1168, “crepas antiquum genus.”

“Indeed, la! ʹtis a noble child; a crack, madam.”


Shakespeare: Coriolanus, i. 3.

A gude crack. A good talker.


“To be a gude crack … was essential to the trade of a ‘puir bodyʹ of the more esteemed class.”—Sir W. Scott: The Antiquary (Introduction).

In a crack. Instantly. In a snap of the fingers, crepʹitu digitoʹrum (in a crack of the fingers). (French, craquer.)


“Une allusion an bruit de lʹongle contre la doul que les Orientaux du moyen age touchaient du doight quand ils voulaient affirmer solennellement une chose.” Hence—


“Sire, bien vous croi seur les Dieux;

Mais assés vous querroie mieux

Se vous lʹongle hurties au dent.”


Théatre Francois de Moyen Age, p. 167.

 

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Entry taken from Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, edited by the Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D. and revised in 1895.

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Cowper
Cowper Law
Coxcomb
Coxeyites
Coxswain
Coyne and Livery
Coystril
Cozen
Crab (A)
Crab-cart
Crack
Crack-brained
Crack a Bottle
Crack a Crib (To)
Crack Up a Person (To)
Cracked
Cracked Pipkins
Cracker
Cracknells (from the French craquelin)
Cradle-land
Craft (A)

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Crack Up a Person (To)
Crush
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