Green’s Dictionary of Slang

see under filbert n.

deflowered; thus crack a ring v.

c.1600		Shakespeare Hamlet II ii: Pray God, your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring.
1606		Middleton Your Five Gallants II iii: Here’s Mistresse Rose-noble has lost her maiden-head, crackt in the Ring; She’s good enough for gaimsters, and to passe from man to man: for gold presents at Dice your harlot, in one houre wone and lost thrice, euery man has a fling at her.
1613		Beaumont & Fletcher Captain II i: To make you [...] Come to be married to my lady’s woman, After she’s crack’d i’ the ring.
1625		Massinger Unnatural Combat IV ii: There is a kinde of a vaulting house not farre off, Where I us’d to spend my afternoones, among Suburb shee-gamesters [...] I have crackd a ring or two there.

a deflowered girl.

1611		R. Cotgrave Dict. of Fr. and Eng. Tongues n.p.: Fille-femme. A crackt peece, [...] one that goes for a maid, (but is none).
1621		R. Burton Anatomy of Melancholy (1893) II 159: One makes a fool of himself [...] a third marries a crackt piece.
1632		N. Goodman Hollands Leaguer 68: There was not a Carrier that had a crackt piece, but she had coyne to exchange it, there was not a Poulterer that brought up a yong or tender pullet, but it was bought for her dyet.
1636		W. Strode Floating Island IV vii: [A] lewde, crack’d abominable piece.

slightly insane, not wholly balanced.

1815		Mthly Rev. [Index] Half-cracked people, instances of, 155.
1829		Medico-Churgical Rev. (NY) Nov. 242/2: The fact is, a few half-cracked agitators have made sensible men shrink from every kind of participation with them.
1836		Museum of Foreign Lit. Nov. 301/1: There’s something in the wild glare of his eyes that convinces me he's half-cracked at time.
1841		Select Circulating Lib. 206: He was at that time one of those wild, half-cracked fellows who do foolish things with a grave face, and call themselves philosophers.
1869		Littell’s Living Age Oct. 19: It’s my belief that fellow's half-cracked, [...] If his heart was not softened just now, it must be his brain that's going.
1877		Whitman Specimen Days 104: Some good people may think it a feeble or half-cracked way of spending one’s time and thinking [DA].
1887		W.P. Frith Autobiog. I 129: Who was what is vulgarly called half-cracked [F&H].
1915		M.G. Hayden ‘Terms Of Disparagement’ in DN IV:iii 218: half-cracked, lacking in intelligence. ‘Look at that girl’s outfit. She must be half-cracked’.
1918		C. Sandburg ‘Cornhuskers’ Complete Poems (1950) 144: Three times ten million men thirsting the blood Of a half-cracked one-armed child of the German kings?
1989		H. Rawson Dict. of Invective (1991) 342: half-boiled, half-brained, half-cracked, half-headed, half-wit(ted), head full of rocks.

something absolutely worthless.

1675

T. Duffet Psyche Debauch’d III iii: Oh the tumbling, and rumbling there was then, ... But now like an old crack’d Groat, whose stamp’s worn out, none will take me, they say I am not current.

(US) diamonds.

1896		Ade Artie (1963) 78: I guess you ain’t goin’ to find no cracked ice in the chairs.
1912		C. Mathewson Pitching in a Pinch 169: [Umpire ‘Silk’ O’Loughlin] wears on his right hand [...] a large diamond that sparkles in the sunlight every time he calls a man out. Many American League players assert that he would rather call a man out than safe, so that he can shimmer his ‘cracked ice’.
1927		‘Jargon of the Und.’ in DN V 442: Cracked ice, Unset diamonds.
1931		Irwin Amer. Tramp and Und. Sl. 56: Cracked Ice. – Diamonds, usually those stones which have not yet been set, or those removed from their settings.
1944		‘Jiver’s Bible’ in D. Burley Orig. Hbk of Harlem Jive.
1949		Monteleone Criminal Sl. (rev. edn) 60: cracked ice Unset diamonds.
1962		Ragen & Finston World’s Toughest Prison 795: cracked ice – Unset diamonds or those removed from settings.

1. a woman living between respectability and prostitution.

1771

Smollett Humphrey Clinker (1925) I 76: For though my being thought capable of making her a mother might have given me some credit, the reputation of an intrigue with such a cracked pitcher does me no honour at all.

2. (also cracked earthenware) a recently lost virginity; thus crack one’s pitcher, to lose one’s virginity.

c.1687		‘Blanket Fair’ in N. Thompson Choice Collection of 120 Loyal Songs 163: Where Wenches sell Glasses & crackt Earthen ware; / To shew that the World, & the pleasures it brings, / Are made up of brittle and slippery things.
1690		‘Teague’ Teagueland Jests I 61: Donnel was preferr’d [...] to marry my Lady’s Chamber-maid and received 50 pound in consideration of a crack’d pitcher [...] three weeks after, the Bride was delivered of a child.
1761		Nancy Dawson’s Jests 36: Ye brimstones of Drury and Exeter-street / [...] / Obey the glad summons and quickly repair / To —’s new warehouse for crack’d earthenware.
c.1786		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue ms. additions n.p.: She has Crackd her Pitcher, or Pipkin, i.e. lost her Maidenhead.
1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (2nd, 3rd edn).
1790		Banquet of Wit 51: An Irishman, being preferred from a skip to marry my lady’s chambermaid, received fifty pound in consideration of a cracked pitcher [...] about three weeks after, the bride was delivered of a child.
1812		Spirit of Irish Wit 131: A gentleman persuaded his Irish servant to marry his chambermaid, and gave hin fifty pounds with her in consideration of a cracked pitcher.
1815		‘Kitty of Coleraine’ in Vocal Mag. 1 June 179: Sure, sure, such a pitcher, I’ll ne’er meet again / [...] / A kiss I then gave her, and before I did leave her, / She vow’d for such pleasure she’d break it again.
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.