- present participle of crack.
cracking
Americannoun
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crackings
plural
adverb
adjective
idioms
adjective
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informal (prenominal) fast; vigorous (esp in the phrase a cracking pace )
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informal to start doing something quickly or do something with increased speed
adverb
noun
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The process of breaking down complex chemical compounds by heating them. Sometimes a catalyst is added to lower the amount of heat needed for the reaction. Cracking is used especially for breaking petroleum molecules into shorter molecules and to extract low-boiling fractions, such as gasoline, from petroleum.
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See also hydrocracking
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of cracking
First recorded in 1250–1300; Middle English; see crack, -ing 1, -ing 2
Vocabulary lists containing cracking
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
The county assessor is cracking down on celebrity jet owners.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 4, 2026
Researchers have spent decades trying to understand the full chain of processes involved in continental rifting, from deep-mantle motion to cracking and earthquakes at the surface.
From Science Daily ● Sep. 1, 2026
On Douyin, China's equivalent of TikTok, videos of users cracking open fruit with their bare hands have been watched billions of times.
From Barron's ● Aug. 30, 2026
From Australia to India, other countries have also been cracking down on the use of social media by teens.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 29, 2026
The sounds of the ice grinding and crushing, creaking and cracking, filled the cold, damp air all around them.
From "Shipwreck at the Bottom of the World" by Jennifer Armstrong
I said nothing, and Leper, having said so much, went on to say more, to speak above the wind and crackings as though his story would never be finished.
From "A Separate Peace" by John Knowles
All the Arctic peoples had been thrown into panic, and so had the animals, not only by the fog and the magnetic variations but by unseasonal crackings of ice and stirrings in the soil.
From "The Subtle Knife" by Philip Pullman
The campus was impressive for what happened within its walls: chest crackings, organ transplants, molecular imagings, genetic probes, and virtually any other medical service known in the advanced world.
From "Mountains Beyond Mountains" by Tracy Kidder and Michael French
The hurricane of Dutch and the volleys of whip crackings rise to a crescendo.
From African Camp Fires by Stewart Edward White
Despite the protecting carton, they went off with crackings like gunfire.
From The Ambulance Made Two Trips by Murray Leinster
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
