Cracker: A Biscuit, a Christmas Pull, and Something Excellent
A cracker is a thin dry biscuit. In Britain it also means the paper tube pulled at Christmas, and informally something outstanding.
A cracker is named for the sound it makes. The dry biscuit cracks when you bite it, the Christmas tube cracks when you pull it, and a firework cracker cracks when it goes off. One noise, three objects.
- A thin dry biscuit. *Cheese and crackers.*
- A festive paper tube (British). *Pull a cracker.*
- A firework. *A string of firecrackers.*
- Something excellent (British informal). *That was a cracker of a game.*
Word forms
| Form | Word | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Noun | cracker | A cream cracker. |
| Adjective | cracking | A cracking performance. |
| Verb | crack | The ice cracked. |
| Compound | firecracker | A box of firecrackers. |
| Compound | nutcracker | A brass nutcracker. |
How it is used in a sentence
- Serve the pate with crackers.The biscuit sense, used everywhere.
- Every cracker contains a paper hat and a bad joke.The British Christmas tradition, invented in the 1840s.
- It was a cracking match.Informal British praise.
Crackers around the world
- Cream cracker — plain and dry, a British staple with cheese
- Water biscuit — even plainer, made with flour and water
- Saltine — the thin salted American cracker
- Graham cracker — sweet, and the base of a cheesecake in America
- Christmas cracker — no relation to any of the above
From *crack*, an imitative word recorded in Old English. The Christmas cracker was invented by the London confectioner Tom Smith around 1847, who added the snap to make a sweet wrapper more exciting.
Cracker or biscuit?
In Britain a cracker is a savoury biscuit; biscuit alone usually means the sweet kind. Americans keep cracker for savoury and cookie for sweet.
Does crackers mean mad?
Yes, in British and Australian informal English: *he has gone crackers*.