Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (UK Und.) usu. in pl., the pillory.

c.1698		B.E. Dict. Canting Crew n.p.: Nut-crackers, c. the Pillory. The Cull lookt through the Nut-crackers the Rogue stood in the Pillory.
1708		J. Hall Memoirs (1714) 13: Nut-crackers, the Pillory.
1719		A. Smith Lives of Most Notorious Highway-men, etc. (1926) II [as cit. c.1698].
1725		New Canting Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1737, 1759, 1760, 1776		Bailey Universal Etym. Eng. Dict. [as cit. c.1698].
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: Nutcrackers, the pillory.
a.1790		H.T. Potter New Dict. Cant (1795).
1809		G. Andrewes Dict. Sl. and Cant.
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1785].
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue [as cit. 1785].
1833		‘A Chaunt by Slapped-up Kate and Dubber Daff’ in Swell!!! or, Slap-Up Chaunter 47: He’s as tall and as straight as a nutcracker’s post.
1848		Flash Dict. in Sinks of London Laid Open 117: Nut crackers, the pillory.
1890–1904		Farmer & Henley Sl. and Its Analogues.

2. in pl., teeth, esp. false or prominent teeth.

1823		Devizes & Wilts. Gaz. 21 Aug. 3/4: Sampson [...] planted such an unanswerable problem on poor Aby’s nutcrackers [that] he went down.
1855		(con. 1824) Fights for the Championship 95: Ward [...] fibbed him with effect on the nut-crackers.
1857		‘George Eliot’ Amos Barton (2003) 38: Her mouth [...] receded too much from her nose and chin, and to a prophetic eye threatened ‘nutcrackers’ in advance age.
1898		J.D. Brayshaw Slum Silhouettes 222: ‘Wots up?’ says she, agrinnin’ an’ showin’ the pearliest little nut-crackers yer ever see.