crackle

From Middle English crakelen, equivalent to crack +‎ -le (frequentative suffix). The physics sense is part of a facetious sequence "snap, crackle, pop", after the mascots of Rice Krispies cereal.

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• Rhymes: -ækəl

crackle (plural crackles)

1. A fizzing, popping sound.
2. (pottery) A style of glaze giving the impression of many small cracks.
3. (physics) The fifth derivative of the position vector with respect to time (after velocity, acceleration, jerk, and jounce), i.e. the rate of change of jounce.

• crackleware

crackle (third-person singular simple present crackles, present participle crackling, simple past and past participle crackled)

1. (intransitive) To make a fizzing, popping sound.

   a crackling fire

   • Dryden

     the unknown ice that crackles underneath them

• crackling

• cackler, clacker