corn-cracker

corn-cracker

See also: corncracker and corn cracker

English

Alternative forms

• corn cracker, corncracker

Noun

corn-cracker (plural corn-crackers)

1. (US, archaic, mildly derogatory) A lower-class white person in the southern US.
   • 1862, James R. Gilmore, chapter 12, in Among the Pines, or, South in Secession Time:

     Our summons was answered by its owner, a well-to-do, substantial, middle-aged planter, wearing the ordinary homespun of the district, but evidently of a station in life much above the common "corn-crackers" I had seen at the country meeting-house.

2. (US, archaic) An agricultural machine for removing the shells from corn.
   • 1847 August, The Prairie Farmer, Volumes 6-8, "Editor's Table", p. 261 (Google books):

     A subscriber at Burnsville inquires for a corn cracker which he can work by attaching it to Warren's horse power. There is a corn cracker made here, but it is not a very superior machine.

See also

• Corn-cracker State