英语词源字典 - 在线词源网站

backer (n.)[backer 词源字典]: "supporter," 1580s, agent noun from back (v.).[backer etymology, backer origin, 英语词源]
bushwhacker (n.): also bush-whacker, 1809, American English, literally "one who beats the bushes" (to make his way through), perhaps modeled on Dutch bosch-wachter "forest keeper;" see bush (n.) + whack (v.). In American Civil War, "irregular who took to the woods" (1862), variously regarded as patriot guerillas or as freebooters. Hence bushwhack (v.), 1837; bushwhacking (1826).
cracker (n.1): mid-15c., "hard wafer," but the specific application to a thin, crisp biscuit is 1739; agent noun from crack (v.). Cracker-barrel (adj.) "emblematic of down-home ways and views" is from 1877.
cracker (n.2): Southern U.S. derogatory term for "poor, white trash" (1766), probably an agent noun from crack (v.) in the sense "to boast" (as in not what it's cracked up to be). Compare Latin crepare "to rattle, crack, creak," with a secondary figurative sense of "boast of, prattle, make ado about."
I should explain to your Lordship what is meant by crackers; a name they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless set of rascalls on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas and Georgia, who often change their places of abode. [1766, G. Cochrane]
But DARE compares corn-cracker "poor white farmer" (1835, U.S. Midwest colloquial). Especially of Georgians by 1808, though often extended to residents of northern Florida. Another name in mid-19c. use was sand-hiller "poor white in Georgia or South Carolina."
Not very essentially different is the condition of a class of people living in the pine-barrens nearest the coast [of South Carolina], as described to me by a rice-planter. They seldom have any meat, he said, except they steal hogs, which belong to the planters, or their negroes, and their chief diet is rice and milk. "They are small, gaunt, and cadaverous, and their skin is just the color of the sand-hills they live on. They are quite incapable of applying themselves steadily to any labor, and their habits are very much like those of the old Indians." [Frederick Law Olmsted, "A Journey in the Seaboard Slave States," 1856]
cracker-jack (n.): also crackerjack, "something excellent," 1893, U.S. colloquialism, apparently a fanciful construction, earliest use in reference to racing horses. The caramel-coated popcorn-and-peanuts confection was said to have been introduced at the World's Columbian Exposition (1893). Supposedly a salesman gave it the name when he tasted some and said, "That's a cracker-jack," using the then-popular expression. The name was trademarked 1896. The "Prize in Every Box" was introduced 1912.
"Your brother Bob is traveling, isn't he?"
"Yep. He's with one of the big racing teams. I tell you, he's a cracker-jack! Wins a bushel of diamonds and gold cups every week."
["Life," Aug. 1, 1895]
firecracker (n.): also fire-cracker, "exploding paper cylinder," 1830, American English coinage for what is in England a cracker, but the U.S. word distinguishes it from the word meaning "biscuit." See fire (n.) + agent noun from crack (v.).
Sec 2 And be it enacted, That it shall not be lawful for any person to burn, explode or throw any burning fire cracker, squib, turpentine balls or fire serpents in this state. [act of the General Assembly of the state of New Jersey, Feb. 18, 1835]
hacker (n.): early 13c. (as a surname), "a chopper, cutter," perhaps also "one who makes hacking tools," agent noun from hack (v.1).

Meaning "one who gains unauthorized access to computer records" is attested by 1975, and this sense seems to suggest hack (v.1), but the computer use is said to be from slightly earlier tech slang sense of "one who works like a hack at writing and experimenting with software, one who enjoys computer programming for its own sake," reputedly a usage that evolved at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (however an MIT student from the late 1960s recalls hack (n.) being used then and there in the general sense of "creative prank." This suggests rather a connection with hack (n.2) via the notion of "plodding, routine work." There may be a convergence of both words here.
knacker (v.): usually in past tense, knackered, "to kill, castrate" (1855), but most often used in weakened sense of "to tire out" (1883); apparently from knacker (n.) "worn-out or useless horse," 1812, of unknown origin; possibly from a dialectal survival of a Scandinavian word represented by Old Norse hnakkur "saddle," hnakki "back of the neck," and thus possibly related to neck (n.).
knackered (adj.): "worn out, tired," past participle adjective from knacker (v.).
mackerel (n.): edible fish, c. 1300, from Old French maquerel "mackerel" (Modern French maquereau), of unknown origin but apparently identical with Old French maquerel "pimp, procurer, broker, agent, intermediary," a word from a Germanic source (compare Middle Dutch makelaer "broker," from Old Frisian mek "marriage," from maken "to make"). The connection is obscure, but medieval people had imaginative notions about the erotic habits of beasts. The fish approach the shore in shoals in summertime to spawn. Exclamation holy mackerel is attested from 1876.
nut-cracker (n.): also nutcracker, 1540s, from nut (n.) + agent noun from crack (v.).
packer (n.): mid-14c. (mid-13c. as a surname), agent noun from pack (v.).
quacker (n.): "a duck," 1846, agent noun from quack (v.).
quackery (n.): 1690s, from quack (n.) + -ery.
safecracker (n.): also safe-cracker, 1897, from safe (n.) + agent noun from crack (v.). Originally in reference to thieves who used dynamite.
slacker (n.): popularized 1994, but the meaning "person who shirks work" dates to 1897; agent noun from slack (v.). In early use also slackster (1901). Compare Old English sleacornes "laziness," which is not, however, an agent noun. Related: Slackerly; slackerish.
smacker (n.): "money," c. 1918, American English slang, perhaps from smack (v.1) on notion of something "smacked" into the palm of the hand. Extended form smackeroo is attested from 1939.
tracker (n.): 1610s, agent noun from track (v.).
illywhacker: "A small-time confidence trickster", 1940s: of unknown origin.