Definitions

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun The peculiar crackling sensation felt on palpation of emphysematous tissues.
  • noun A crackling noise, resembling a succession of minute explosions, such as the crackling of some salts in calcination, or the noise made in the friction of fractured bones when moved in certain directions; also, in pathology, the grating sensation felt by the hand when applied to fractured bones under movement; crepitus.
  • noun Specifically In pathol., certain sounds detected in the lungs by auscultation; the peculiar crackling sound which characterizes pneumonia; crepitant rales.
  • noun The action of a crepitaculum, as of that of a rattlesnake; stridulation.
  • noun In entomology, the act of ejecting a pungent fluid from the anus, with a slight noise. See crepitate, 3.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun The act of crepitating or crackling.
  • noun A grating or crackling sensation or sound, as that produced by rubbing two fragments of a broken bone together, or by pressing upon cellular tissue containing air.
  • noun A crepitant râle.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun The act of crepitating or crackling.
  • noun A grating or crackling sensation or sound, as that produced by rubbing two fragments of a broken bone together, or by pressing upon cellular tissue containing air.
  • noun A crepitant rale.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

  • noun the sharp sound of snapping noises

Etymologies

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Examples

  • The crepitation is the result of the action of a powerful magnetic pole upon luminous electric jets in its immediate neighborhood.

    The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 04, No. 26, December, 1859 Various

  • "True, father, but I thought it would be preferable to the constant crepitation which is apt to attend the combustion of more seasoned ligneous fragments."

    The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales With Condensed Novels, Spanish and American Legends, and Earlier Papers Bret Harte 1869

  • "True, father, but I thought it would be preferable to the constant crepitation which is apt to attend the combustion of more seasoned ligneous fragments."

    Condensed Novels Bret Harte 1869

  • 3 The medical term for joint popping is "crepitation," which also is a term for farting.

    Oh, snap! Crackle and pop Gene Weingarten 2010

  • They had arrived at the straw pallet on which Philip lay, so still and mute that Cadfael's heart misdoubted for a moment, and then caught gratefully at the sudden shudder and crepitation of breath.

    A River So Long 2010

  • When she returned the room was silent again, save for the faint crepitation of his chair and the occasional clink of a bottle.

    The Invisible Man Herbert George 2006

  • Everywhere on earth that day, in the ears of every one who breathed, there had been the same humming in the air, the same rush of green vapors, the crepitation, the streaming down of shooting stars.

    In the Days of the Comet Herbert George 2006

  • A heavenly day again! the world all dead silence, save when, from far down below us in the woods, comes up the crepitation of the little wooden drum that beats to church.

    Vailima Letters 2005

  • There was a faint murmur in the air, a slight crepitation, as if the air itself were turning to snow; otherwise all was silent, save when a sheep coughed, snow flopped from a branch, or slipped in an avalanche down some roof in London.

    The Years 2004

  • The stir of that anticipation was in the air, the warm earth was parting above the swelling seeds, and all the pine-woods were full of the minute crepitation of opening bud scales.

    Love and Mr Lewisham Herbert George 2004

Comments

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  • "...feeling the spike and the wound and the crepitation of bone..."

    --O'Brian, The Truelove, 122

    March 11, 2008

  • ...was driving his Yakima jailors crazy by means of incomprehensible crepitations, nerve signals, spirals of outgoing light and feats of ventriloquism that imitated pistol shots and sirens.

    - Nabokov, Ada, or Ardor

    June 3, 2008

  • See also crepitus.

    October 16, 2008

  • The Boston primness Howard associated with these kinds of events could not quite survive the mass of hot bodies and the crepitations of the crickets, the soft, damp bark of the trees and the atonal tuning of instruments – and all this was to the good.

    —Zadie Smith, On Beauty

    May 27, 2009

  • But after the gay evening there came again the insidious approach, the oblique shuffle, that creeping up, and that pause, and the resumed crepitation

    -Nabokov, Pale Fire

    August 25, 2011

  • "I crossed the street to survey the lake and I heard crepitations—three little girls bouncing their ball."

    "My Defects" by Diane Williams, in Vicky Swanky Is a Beauty (p 13)

    December 31, 2012

  • In entomology, the act of ejecting a pungent fluid from the anus, with a slight noise.

    January 29, 2013