Cack

//kæk// noun, verb, slang

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A squawk.

    "Of course, so excitable a nature must find other than physical outlet for his irrepressible energy, and he accompanies his movements by more or less appropriate notes: scolding cacks, clinking, metallic rattles, musical trills, tree-toadlike krrrings – in fact, he possesses an almost endless vocabulary ."

  2. 2
    An act of defecation. countable, uncountable

    "Can't cack... won't cack, My bum hole has gone on strike, I've huffed and puffed, grunted and groaned, And squeezed as hard as I liked, I've leant myself backwards, leant to the front, Raised my knees and then put them back, I've gripped the seat and pushed like hell, But still...I can't have a cack."

  3. 3
    Penis. slang, uncountable
  4. 4
    An inexpensive boot or shoe made in the 19th or early 20th century for a baby or young child.

    "To one handling shoes, from cacks to footwear for the oldest men and women , and taking into consideration the trade as it is handled at large not simply in our city , the universally ac- knowledged metropolis of the world , I desire to say that to my mind there is more fakism used to sell shoes than to sell any other necessary article."

  5. 5
    obsolete spelling of cake (any sense) alt-of, obsolete

    "Eye colours for dying blew, almost as good as Indico, made vp in round cacks or pieces, and packed one hundred cacks in a Fardell, worth the Fardell, fiftie to sixtie."

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  1. 6
    A discordant note.
  2. 7
    Excrement. countable, slang, uncountable

    "I dive back in along the cobbles, step over the cack, wall an fence closin me down, barbed wire left, razor wire right, follow by puttied-in broken glass, spike rails an stuck-on warnings about dogs."

  3. 8
    A young child. slang

    "Ma is calling breakfast. The little cacks are up. Billy, who is only six –and you are eight! –Billy tried to wash himself and got some soap in his eyes. Funny that little cacks like that always get soap in their eyes!"

  4. 9
    A cackling goose (Branta hutchinsii) informal

    "[…] cacks, " the whitefronts or specklebellies in the Sacramento Valley"

  5. 10
    Rubbish; anything worthless. countable, slang, uncountable

    "'See that' said the man, pointing with his fork at a trace of soemthing on the rim, 'that's not been washed properly. That's a bit of old cack on there.'"

Verb
  1. 1
    To squawk.

    "Still fluffy with down, she often attacks the other birds, cacking and flashing her wings, or threatens me as I watch through the tiny peephole of the near box."

  2. 2
    To defecate. intransitive

    "Can't cack... won't cack, My bum hole has gone on strike, I've huffed and puffed, grunted and groaned, And squeezed as hard as I liked, I've leant myself backwards, leant to the front, Raised my knees and then put them back, I've gripped the seat and pushed like hell, But still...I can't have a cack."

  3. 3
    To incorrectly play a note by hitting a partial other than the one intended.

    "The bugler hopes not to cack during his performance."

  4. 4
    To defecate (on); to shit. transitive

    "‘I asked him once if he got nervous before doing it,’ says Astin, ‘and he said he was absolutely cacking himself before going on stage, but as soon as he got there it was fantastic.’"

  5. 5
    To laugh. Australian, slang

    "I had to cack when you fell down the stairs."

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  1. 6
    To excrete (something) by defecation. transitive

    "He smelled the ferrous oxide of blood and the farmyard stench of shit. He'd cacked it. He was empty and he'd cacked his load. The brushman came over, lisping slightly[…]"

  2. 7
    To kill. US, slang

    "He tried to shoot me, so I cacked him."

  3. 8
    To cheat.

    "Thus was I then to lose my faithfull preceptress, as did the philosophers of the town the white crow of her profession: for besides that she never ransacked her customers, whose taste too she ever studiously consulted, she never cacked her pupils with unconscionable extortions, nor ever put their hard earnings, as she called them, under the contribution of poundage."

Etymology

Etymology 1

Onomatopoeia; see cackle.

Etymology 2

Onomatopoeia; see cackle.

Etymology 3

From Middle English cakken, from Old English *cacian, from Old English cac (“dung; excrement”), from Latin cacāre (“excrete feces”). Cognate with English caca. Compare Dutch kakken (“to defecate”), German kacken (“to relieve oneself; defecate”), Latin cacō (“defecate”) (see there for more); compare also Irish cac (“feces, excrement”).

Etymology 4

From Middle English cakken, from Old English *cacian, from Old English cac (“dung; excrement”), from Latin cacāre (“excrete feces”). Cognate with English caca. Compare Dutch kakken (“to defecate”), German kacken (“to relieve oneself; defecate”), Latin cacō (“defecate”) (see there for more); compare also Irish cac (“feces, excrement”).

Etymology 5

From cock.

Etymology 6

Of unknown origin. Possibly from Scots cack (“soft shoe”).

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