Word.ws English Dictionary

get cracking

get cracking verb: to get started; to get busy.

Verb

get cracking (third-person singular simple present gets cracking, present participle getting cracking, simple past got cracking, past participle (UK) got cracking or (US) gotten cracking)

  1. (informal) To get started; to get busy.
    • If I'm going to finish my homework by Thursday, I'd better get cracking.

Forms of get cracking

third-person singular presentgets cracking
present participlegetting cracking
pastgot cracking
past participle UKgot cracking
past participle USgotten cracking

Questions about get cracking

What does get cracking mean?
Get cracking means to get started; to get busy.
What part of speech is get cracking?
Get cracking is a verb.
What is the past tense of get cracking?
The past tense of get cracking is got cracking.

Words near get cracking in the dictionary

  1. get by
  2. get by the balls
  3. get by with
  4. get changed
  5. get cold feet
  6. get cracking
  7. get down
  8. get down on
  9. get down to
  10. get down to bedrock
  11. get down to brass nails

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: get cracking (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.

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