Crackle
noun, verb ·Moderate ·College level
Definitions
- 1 A prolonged, frequent cracking sound; a fizzing, popping sound.
"I heard a crackle from the frying pan as I was frying bacon."
- 2 glazed china with a network of fine cracks on the surface wordnet
- 3 A style of glaze giving the impression of many small cracks.
"The Chinese attach great value to their crackle, which, though it looks like damaged glaze, is produced by art; […]."
- 4 the sharp sound of snapping noises wordnet
- 5 The fifth derivative of the position vector with respect to time (after velocity, acceleration, jerk, and jounce), i.e. the rate of change of jounce.
Show 1 more definition
- 6 Synonym of crackling (“crispy rind of roast pork”).
"By the look on my face I must have anticipated the joy of the crackle, apparently having come to look forward to the roast pig that appeared only at gatherings such as this. I bet I asked for another piece once I was done."
- 1 To make a prolonged, frequent cracking sound which sounds like fizzing or popping. intransitive
"a crackling fire"
- 2 to become, or to cause to become, covered with a network of small cracks wordnet
- 3 To be full of tension or emotion. figuratively, intransitive
"The last scenes of the film crackle with repressed sexual energy."
- 4 make a crushing noise wordnet
- 5 make a crackling sound wordnet
- 1 having the surface decorated with a network of fine cracks, as in crackleware wordnet
Example
More examples"He spake, and nearer through the city came / the roar, the crackle and the fiery glow / of conflagration, rolling floods of flame."
Etymology
From Middle English crakelen, equivalent to crack + -le (frequentative suffix). The physics sense is part of a facetious sequence "snap, crackle, pop", after the mascots of Rice Krispies cereal.
Related phrases
More for "crackle"
Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.