What's the difference between crack and pierce?

Crack


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To break or burst, with or without entire separation of the parts; as, to crack glass; to crack nuts.
  • (v. t.) To rend with grief or pain; to affect deeply with sorrow; hence, to disorder; to distract; to craze.
  • (v. t.) To cause to sound suddenly and sharply; to snap; as, to crack a whip.
  • (v. t.) To utter smartly and sententiously; as, to crack a joke.
  • (v. t.) To cry up; to extol; -- followed by up.
  • (v. i.) To burst or open in chinks; to break, with or without quite separating into parts.
  • (v. i.) To be ruined or impaired; to fail.
  • (v. i.) To utter a loud or sharp, sudden sound.
  • (v. i.) To utter vain, pompous words; to brag; to boast; -- with of.
  • (n.) A partial separation of parts, with or without a perceptible opening; a chink or fissure; a narrow breach; a crevice; as, a crack in timber, or in a wall, or in glass.
  • (n.) Rupture; flaw; breach, in a moral sense.
  • (n.) A sharp, sudden sound or report; the sound of anything suddenly burst or broken; as, the crack of a falling house; the crack of thunder; the crack of a whip.
  • (n.) The tone of voice when changed at puberty.
  • (n.) Mental flaw; a touch of craziness; partial insanity; as, he has a crack.
  • (n.) A crazy or crack-brained person.
  • (n.) A boast; boasting.
  • (n.) Breach of chastity.
  • (n.) A boy, generally a pert, lively boy.
  • (n.) A brief time; an instant; as, to be with one in a crack.
  • (n.) Free conversation; friendly chat.
  • (a.) Of superior excellence; having qualities to be boasted of.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) They’re no crack force either; many are rather portly!
  • (2) While superheroes like “superman” (21st in SplashData’s 2014 rankings) and “batman” (24th) may be popular choices for passwords, the results if they are cracked could be anything other than super – and users will only have themselves to blame.
  • (3) However, we have observed cracks on the Dacron fibers, fiber fracture, fiber protrusion, and poor attachment to the diaphragm, which can cause potentially disastrous complications.
  • (4) But instead, he is going to crack under public anger over the huge amounts senior bankers have been paying themselves.
  • (5) It is found that, in contrast to most metallic materials yet in keeping with many ceramics, there are no distinct fracture morphologies in pyro-carbons which are characteristic of a specific mode of loading; fracture surfaces appear to be identical for both catastrophic and subcritical crack growth under either sustained or cyclic loading.
  • (6) Iowa senator Chuck Grassley, the Republican who chairs the Senate judiciary committee, introduced legislation on Tuesday that would crack down on jurisdictions that provide safe harbor for undocumented migrants by withholding some federal funding for state and local entities if they decline to cooperate with the government on the holding or transferring of undocumented migrants with criminal records.
  • (7) In a single letter in February 2005, Charles urged a badger cull to prevent the spread of bovine tuberculosis – damning opponents to the cull as “intellectually dishonest”; lobbied for his preferred person to be appointed to crack down on the mistreatment of farmers by supermarkets; proposed his own aide to brief Downing Street on the design of new hospitals; and urged Blair to tackle an EU directive limiting the use of herbal alternative medicines in the UK.
  • (8) On second impacts, the GSI rose considerably because the shell and liner of the DH-151 cracked and the suspension of the "141" stretched during the first blow.
  • (9) 9.18pm: The Ohio Democrat Dennis Kucinich has a crack, and he's taking no prisoners: "We've heard Mr Toyoda say that Toyota grew to fast.
  • (10) Here come the Dodgers for another crack at it in the second.
  • (11) That led to the second breakthrough, as the once formidable laws of omerta - silence punishable by death - cracked.
  • (12) The passengers were then flown to an Australian icebreaker, the Aurora Australis, which had cracked through ice floes and was now sailing towards Australia's Casey research base.
  • (13) SEM of the resulting surface showed rounded fragments of enamel rods, enamel melting, cracks, and smooth-edged voids.
  • (14) According to the NYPD commissioner, Bill Bratton, whose voice almost cracked with emotion as he addressed the media on Saturday evening , the “digital warning poster” featuring a picture of Brinsley and his whereabouts arrived at the data centre at 2.47pm.
  • (15) As subcritical crack velocities under cyclic loading were found to be many orders of magnitude faster than those measured under equivalent monotonic loads and to occur at typically 45% lower stress-intensity levels, cyclic fatigue in pyrolytic carbon-coated graphite is reasoned to be a vital consideration in the design and life-prediction procedures of prosthetic devices manufactured from this material.
  • (16) It is hence impossible to wiretap, intercept or crack the information transmitted through it,” Xinhua reported after Tuesday’s launch.
  • (17) He just never dreamed it would be life without parole.” Obama reduces sentences of 46 inmates convicted of nonviolent drug crimes Read more As his sister put it, Bennett “got caught up” in a five-man drug ring run by an old friend, John Hansley, to pay for his addiction to crack.
  • (18) Spencer has now heard that Andy, who got the boat remember, has been cracking on to Louise, even though Jamie warned him it would be like jumping into a polar bear's nest.
  • (19) "I urge both the monks and the lay Tibetans of the area not to do anything that might be used as a pretext by the local authorities to massively crack down on them.
  • (20) Of 26 patients treated to date, 16 have been crack cocaine users.

Pierce


Definition:

  • (v. t.) To thrust into, penetrate, or transfix, with a pointed instrument.
  • (v. t.) To penetrate; to enter; to force a way into or through; to pass into or through; as, to pierce the enemy's line; a shot pierced the ship.
  • (v. t.) Fig.: To penetrate; to affect deeply; as, to pierce a mystery.
  • (v. i.) To enter; to penetrate; to make a way into or through something, as a pointed instrument does; -- used literally and figuratively.

Example Sentences:

  • (1) At pH 7.0, reduction is complete after 6 to 10 h. These results together with an earlier study concerning the positions of the two most readily reduced bonds (Cornell J.S., and Pierce, J.G.
  • (2) Cook, who has postbox-red hair and a painful-looking piercing in his lower lip, was now on stage in discussion with four fellow YouTubers, all in their early 20s.
  • (3) Meanwhile the Brooklyn Nets, who have been dealing with nothing but bad news since the start of the regular season, will be without Paul Pierce for 2-4 weeks, also due to a right hand fracture.
  • (4) After properly fixing the vas deferens with a ring clamp, the surgeon pierces the scrotal skin, vas sheath, and vas deferens in the midline with a curved dissecting clamp held at a 45 degree angle from horizontal.
  • (5) The dorsal interosseous muscles gave off tendons which pierced the transverse laminae or passed deep to the transverse laminae, and attached to the bases of the proximal phalanges.
  • (6) Four patients received a subclavian intraaortic balloon pump, two were supported with a Novacor left ventricular assist system, three patients received Pierce-Donachy ventricular assist devices, and one patient received a Jarvik 7 total artificial heart.
  • (7) Lisbeth Salander is a violent and emotionally uncommunicative tattooed and much-pierced goth who grew up in care, and has had serious mental health issues.
  • (8) Ear-piercing techniques include needles, safety pins, sharpened studs, and self-piercing kits.
  • (9) The price G4S is paying amounts to 8.5 times of top-line earnings - "by no means cheap," said Seymour Pierce analyst Kevin Lapwood.
  • (10) But the character – compounded of piercing sanity and existential despair, infinite hesitation and impulsive action, self-laceration and observant irony – is so multi-faceted, it is bound to coincide at some point with an actor’s particular gifts.
  • (11) This paper draws attention to tool marks in the area of pierced rib cartilage and considers the possibilities of their analysis.
  • (12) Fourteen patients were supported with a Pierce-Donachy ventricular assist device (left ventricular assist in seven, right ventricular assist in three, both in four); nine were supported with extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, two with a Medtronic centrifugal left ventricular assist pump, one with biventricular Biomedicus pumps, and one with a Novacor left ventricular assist system.
  • (13) A scanning electron microscope (SEM) study of the mouthparts of Psoroptes cuniculi from rabbits and P. ovis from sheep established that they are identical in morphology and are adapted for surface feeding rather than piercing the epidermis.
  • (14) The footage beamed back from the liberated districts of Ramadi is grim: a ghost town littered with debris and smashed concrete, destroyed storefronts, plumes of smoke, the sound of gunfire piercing the air as Iraqi soldiers speak on camera.
  • (15) We stress the need for strict enforcement of correct sterilization procedures whenever needles are used to pierce skin.
  • (16) By stepping back from some of the more radical solutions suggested before the election – such as the complete separation of high street banks from "casino" investment banks proposed by business secretary Vince Cable – the commission left the banks "secretly quite pleased", according to Bruce Packard, banks analyst at Seymour Pierce.
  • (17) In 2013, actor Pierce Brosnan’s daughter, Charlotte, died from ovarian cancer.
  • (18) The piercing intelligence-wise in terms of humans has been very difficult all along."
  • (19) The passage through Congress of legislation such as the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act , which reduced the racially significant disparity between punishments for crack and powder cocaine, and the Death in Custody Act , which introduces a federal record of deaths in police custody, have shown that incarceration – and perhaps incarceration alone – is able to pierce through the partisan gridlock of Washington.
  • (20) Benteke and the tireless Andreas Weimann take the plaudits for their four passes that pierced the Liverpool defence and saw the Austrian forward sweep home Benteke's exquisite back-heel.