- crack
- crack vb *break, burst, bust, snap, shatter, shiverAnalogous words: split, rend, cleave, rive (see TEAR)crack n1 Crack, cleft, fissure, crevasse, crevice, cranny, chink are comparable when meaning an opening, break, or discontinuity made by or as if by splitting or rupture.Crack basically applies to substances or structures that are subjected to drying, slow disintegration, or shrinking or are fragile or brittle{
a crack in dry earth
}{a crack in the plaster
}{a crack in a china plate
}{little rifts and cracks are beginning to appear in the whole bland, ecclesiastical facade of Victorian England— Day Lewis
}Cleft implies an opening or break wider and deeper than a crack and often in a natural structure; it may suggest a defect that is constitutional or an opening that is left by nature{a cleft in a great rock
}{a cleft in a palate
}{this belief in an irremediable cleft within our intelligence must destroy our confidence that either our facts or our values are anywhere near the truth— Inge
}Fissure does not differ materially from cleft except that it usually suggests a narrow and deep opening and does not carry so strong an implication of inherent defect. The term may denote a normal structural feature{the fissures of the brain are deep dividing lines between certain of its lobes
}or an abnormal condition{a fissure in the earth's crust
}{painful fissures at the corners of the mouth— JAMA
}In extended use it usually suggests something abnormal or undesirable{the loss ef Illyria would have made a dangerous fissure between East and West— Buchan
}Crevasse is applied generally and usually in its extended use to a fissure or cleft that is broad and deep{an angry clamor which rang down the crevasse of Wall Street— Fortune
}but is particularly applicable to a deep break in the surface of a glacier or a wide breach in a levee{a glacier, riven with deep crevasses, yawning fifty or sixty feet wide— King
}{where the current of a flood locally and violently breaks across a levee a crevasse is cut— von Engeln
}Crevice and cranny apply especially to a space made by a break or crack (as in a wall or a cliff) that forms a place for dirt to gather or for plants to root and grow{a pile of purple rock, all broken out with red sumac and yellow aspens up in the high crevices of the cliffs— Cather
}{the log church whose crannies admitted the drifting snow— Everett
}Cranny often (crevice occasionally) conveys so strongly the notion of an obscure, remote, or hidden nook that it loses completely all suggestion of a mode of formation{a first-rate guidebook for adventurous tourists. It searches into every cranny of an exotic world— Lehrman
}{pursuing their subtleties into the last refuge and cranny of logic— Partington
}{makes its way into every crack and crevice of our being— Cardozo
}Chink implies a small break or hole sufficient for one to see through or for something to come through{sleep on straw ticks exposed to winter snows that came through chinks in the logs— Amer. Guide Series: Ind.
}{watch a game through chinks in the fence
}{chinks in the wall admitted the only light there was
}Analogous words: split, rent, rift (see BREACH)2 wisecrack, witticism, *joke, jest, jape, quip, gag
New Dictionary of Synonyms. 2014.
