noun gossip, chatter; sociable conversation, topical themes: And fair enjoying o the crack. They will pop in and out of my tales as I go along. 18-.
verb talk, tell one’s news: And then they would start away cracking about…where they’d been, and who they’d seen. la16-.
‣ give us your crack give me your news; tell me a story or tell me the latest gossip 18-. etymology: Scots; the noun is unknown in Old English, but corresponding forms occur early in cognate languages: Old High German chrac, dialect German krack, Dutch krak, Middle High German and German krach, Middle Dutch crak, modern Dutch kraak, East Frisian krakand krâk; attested by SR and BS in TDITA, JS, SS, BW, DW and DW in DC; phrase collected by DB note:
Grose and Egan (1823) attest the phrases: the crack or all the crack as ‘The fashionable theme. The go.’.
Also attested by Canadian Paul Pope (2013) with the same meaning.