2
a
: a mental collapse : nervous breakdown
his wife's death brought on his crack-up
cracked up; cracking up; cracks up
1
: praise, tout sense 1
wasn't all that it was cracked up to be
2
: to damage or destroy (a vehicle) by crashing
crack up a car
3
: to cause to laugh out loud
that joke really cracks him up
1
: to damage or destroy a vehicle (as by losing control)
cracked up on a curve
2
: to laugh out loud
Examples of crack-up in a Sentence
Noun
a crack-up required him to take a year off from work
two people were injured in a serious crack-up on the interstate
Verb
that sports car isn't all it's cracked up to be
the movie is being cracked up as the blockbuster of the summer
Recent Examples on the Web
Michael Kimmage, Foreign Affairs, 25 Feb. 2025
Because even the most powerful companies are just participants in a broader world, and if the rage of those who are sacrificed to feed the bottom line wrecks that broader world, well, then a crack-up is coming.
—airmail.news, 25 Jan. 2025
Thomas Doherty, HollywoodReporter, 14 June 2025
The two cracked up laughing, and not about how Ohtani was swinging the bat.
—Fabian Ardaya, New York Times, 17 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for crack-up
Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to
show current usage.
Read More
Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors.
Send us feedback.
Noun
Despite the book’s title, Buchanan had some hope for the West (in his us-and-them sense of the term) and was confident in globalism’s impending crack-up.
—Michael Kimmage, Foreign Affairs, 25 Feb. 2025
Because even the most powerful companies are just participants in a broader world, and if the rage of those who are sacrificed to feed the bottom line wrecks that broader world, well, then a crack-up is coming.
—airmail.news, 25 Jan. 2025
Verb
Not so lucky was Roy Wilson, a veteran of over 65 aerial sequences, who was killed during the filming of Columbia’s War Correspondent (1932) when his plane went into a tailspin at 2,000 feet and cracked up on the ground.
—Thomas Doherty, HollywoodReporter, 14 June 2025
The two cracked up laughing, and not about how Ohtani was swinging the bat.
—Fabian Ardaya, New York Times, 17 June 2025
See All Example Sentences for crack-up
Cite this Entry
“Crack-up.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/crack-up. Accessed 8 Jul. 2025.
Copy CitationLove words? Need even more definitions?
Merriam-Webster unabridged
Share