stepping on crack
Pavement line avoidance
Stepping on a crack refers to the childhood superstition that stepping on sidewalk cracks brings bad luck, captured in the rhyme "Step on a crack, break your mother's back." Children play at avoiding cracks while walking, and the phrase persists as a reference to trivial superstitious behavior: I still catch myself not stepping on cracks.
- sidewalkPaved pedestrian pathway
- pavementHard road covering
- superstitionBaseless belief in omens
- old wives taleUnverified traditional belief
- urban legendUnverified viral story
childhood · childhood game · rhyme · fracture · concrete · lines · bad luck · good luck charm · avoid · hop · jump · game · playground · careful · cement · broken · crevice · split
- superstitionblack cat, broken mirror, Friday the 13th, walking under ladder, evil eye
- superstitionssuperstition, superstitions, hexes, black cats, broken mirror
- mythsmyth, legend, fable, fairy tale, folk tale
- childhood mythstooth fairy, Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, boogeyman, monster under bed