Word.ws English Dictionary

crack a smile

crack a smile verb: to smile, especially while attempting not to.

Verb

crack a smile (third-person singular simple present cracks a smile, present participle cracking a smile, simple past and past participle cracked a smile)

  1. (idiomatic) To smile, especially while attempting not to.
    • Life is a gamble, we scramble for money
      I might crack a smile, but ain't a damn thing funny1995, Mobb Deep featuring Nas and Raekwon, “Eye for a Eye (Your Beef Is Mines)”, in The Infamous
    • I, I tried / To be complacent for a while / It got hard to crack a smile2020, Dana Foote, “Wrath”, in Party Favors, performed by Sir Chloe
  2. (idiomatic) To begin to smile.

Forms of crack a smile

third-person singular presentcracks a smile
present participlecracking a smile
past participlecracked a smile
pastcracked a smile

Questions about crack a smile

What does crack a smile mean?
Crack a smile means to smile, especially while attempting not to.
What part of speech is crack a smile?
Crack a smile is a verb.
What is the past tense of crack a smile?
The past tense of crack a smile is cracked a smile.

Words near crack a smile in the dictionary

  1. crack a book
  2. crack a crib
  3. crack a crust
  4. crack a fat
  5. crack a rat
  6. crack a smile
  7. crack along
  8. crack babies
  9. crack baby
  10. crack brained
  11. crack cocaine

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: crack a smile (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: en-au-crack a smile.ogg.

Cite this entry: “crack a smile.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/crack_a_smile. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.