crackers meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

crackers

noun

Etymology From cracker + -s. The South African sense is from their sound and its status as a plurale tantum by association with trousers. The adjectival sense derives from British naval expressions referring to firecrackers in one's head, originally as "he's got the crackers" and then "he's gone crackers" before the present "he is crackers".

South Africa A kind of noisy leather pants or trousers.

Sheepskin trousers—which, from the sound they make at every movement of the wearer, are called ‘crackers’.1849, E.E. Napier, Excursions in Southern Africa, volume II, page 13:

Slang Testicles.

crackers

adj

UK, Colloquial Crazy, insane.

“I will call up Demons to destroy thee!” “You're crackers,” said Carrot, backing away.1970, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 28:
He acknowledges that it must seem "a crackers thing to say", but given the substantial progress which has been made in other areas of the business, his optimism isn't without foundation.2021 May 5, Graeme Pickering, “Managing Metro's morphosis”, in RAIL, number 930, page 52:

1 more example

Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson’s former chief adviser, told the online magazine UnHerd in May that Truss was “as close to properly crackers as anybody I have met in parliament” and would be an “even worse” prime minister than Johnson.2022 July 30, Dominic Cummings, quotee, “‘Ambition greater than ability’: Liz Truss’s rise from teen Lib Dem to would-be PM”, in The Guardian: