corn-cracker

American  

[kawrn-krak-er] / ˈkɔrnˌkræk ər /

noun

Slang: Disparaging and Offensive.

1. a contemptuous term used to refer to a member of a class of poor white people in the southern U.S.

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Sensitive Note

This term is used with disparaging intent and is perceived as insulting, being similar in connotation to redneck and hillbilly. Corn-cracker originally referred to a native of Kentucky or Georgia, but has come to apply broadly to any poor white person in the South. See also cracker.

Etymology

Origin of corn-cracker

An Americanism dating back to 1825–35; corn ¹ + cracker

Example Sentences

I do not know whether my backwoods friend or the Parisian pavior was the first inventor of this composition; but I am satisfied the corn-cracker had not stolen it from the stone-cracker.

From The Continental Monthly, Vol. 2, No. 2, August, 1862 Devoted to Literature and National Policy by Various

When the Colonel, who had been closeted for a few minutes with Madam P——, came out of the house, we mounted, and rode off with the "corn-cracker."

From Among the Pines or, South in Secession Time by Gilmore, James R.

In the words of Mr. Snell, when he came out from behind the watering-trough: "It was a corn-cracker!"

From The Skipper and the Skipped Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul by Day, Holman

I do not know whether my back-woods friend, or the Parisian pavior, was the first inventor of this composition, but I am satisfied the corn-cracker had not stolen it from the stone-cracker.

From Among the Pines or, South in Secession Time by Gilmore, James R.

We then left the cabin, and when out of hearing of the blacks, I said to the corn-cracker: "That may be Scripture doctrine, but I have not been taught so!"

From Among the Pines or, South in Secession Time by Gilmore, James R.