cack

• IPA^(key): /kæk/

• Audio (AU)

  (file)

• Rhymes: -æk

Onomatopoeia.

cack (plural cacks)

1. A squawk.
   • 1916, Frank Michler Chapman, Handbook of Birds of Eastern North America‎, page 493:

     […] for on occasions he gives utterance to an entirely uncharacteristic series of cacking notes, and even mounts high in the tree to sing a hesitating medley of the same unmusical cacks, broken whistled calls, and attempted trills.

2. A discordant note.

cack (third-person singular simple present cacks, present participle cacking, simple past and past participle cacked)

1. (of a bird) To squawk.
   • 1990, P. H. Liotta, Learning to Fly‎, page 32:

     Still fluffy with down, she often attacks the other birds, cacking and flashing her wings, or threatens me as I watch through the tiny peephole of the near box.

   • 2000, Minnesota Ornithologists′ Union, The Loon, Volumes 72-74, page 37,

     While the Gyrfalcon cacked loudly on each stoop, the owl did not scream.

   • 2007, Turk Allcott, Time Leak‎, page 63:

     Peckle snitted them off and cacked at them. Then he flew up by the rope-tie spot and puffed out his chest and then the wrens made another dash for the scraps and he dove down and cacked them away.

2. (brass instrument technique) To incorrectly play a note by hitting a partial other than the one intended.

   The bugler hopes not to cack during his performance.

From Middle English cakken, from Old English *cacian, from Old English cac (“dung; excrement”), of uncertain origin and relation.

Cognate with English caca. Compare Dutch kakken (“to defecate”), German kacken (“to relieve oneself; defecate”), Latin cacāre (“to defecate”); cf. also Irish cac (“feces, excrement”).

cack (third-person singular simple present cacks, present participle cacking, simple past and past participle cacked)

1. (intransitive) To defecate.
2. (transitive) To defecate (on); to shit.
   • 2005, M. J. Simpson, Hitchhiker: A Biography of Douglas Adams‎, page 322:

     ‘I asked him once if he got nervous before doing it,’ says Astin, ‘and he said he was absolutely cacking himself before going on stage, but as soon as he got there it was fantastic.’

   • 2010, Tony Doyle, Flying at the Edge: 20 Years of Front-Line and Display Flying in the Cold War Era, Pen and Sword, →ISBN, page 356:

     […] through the open door, now directly below his feet, and nearly cacked his breeks when the stretcher skidded slightly on the shiny metal floor.

   • 2010, Julian Barnes, Nothing to be Frightened Of, Vintage Canada, →ISBN, page 68:

     Another distinction she reported: my brother once cacked his pants and responded with the words, "It will never happen again" – and it didn't, […]

   • 2016, Nicholas Blincoe, Jello Salad, Canelo, →ISBN:

     He smelled the ferrous oxide of blood and the farmyard stench of shit. He'd cacked it. He was empty and he'd cacked his load. The brushman came over, lisping slightly […]

   • 2018, B. de Paul, When Angels Rise, →ISBN:

     Hans Bach gave him a look, and he cacked his pants and hurried off.

3. (US, slang) To kill.

   “He tried to shoot me, so I cacked him.”

• (to shit): See Thesaurus:defecate
• (to kill): See Thesaurus:kill

• becack

cack (plural cacks)

1. An act of defecation.
2. Excrement.
3. Rubbish.

• (excrement): caca; see also Thesaurus:feces

• cack-handed, cack-house (archaic)

(This etymology is missing or incomplete. Please add to it, or discuss it at the Etymology scriptorium.)

cack (third-person singular simple present cacks, present participle cacking, simple past and past participle cacked)

1. (Australian slang) To laugh.

   I had to cack when you fell down the stairs.

• cack up

From cock.

cack (uncountable)

1. (slang) Penis.