to crack up

Dictionary of American Words And Phrases by John Russell Bartlett.

To crack, i. e. to brag or boast, is a verb common in old authors, from Chaucer downwards, and still provincial in the north of England. We use it only in the phrase to crack up. Thus we say, "A Yankee is sure to crack up his own country;" "That is not what it is cracked up to be."

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