I believe "crackpot" dates back to the last decade of the nineteenth century; however, I'm curious to know why "crackpot" was used to describe someone mentally unbalanced or crazy. Any thoughts?
Learn English – Why was someone considered mentally unbalanced or crazy called a “crackpot”
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A Collection of College Words and Customs (1851) by Benjamin Homer Hall says:
AHD-Idioms 2nd Edn. p.29
ball up
2. Confuse or bungle, ... This term may come from the fact that when a horse is driven over soft or party thawed snow, the snow becomes packed into icy balls on its hoofs, making it stumble. Another theory is that it alludes to the vulgar term balls for testicles. [First half of 1900s]
I find the first theory more credible, though.
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Best Answer
OED's definition #5 for cracked...
...for which the first relevant citation is...
As to the specific conjunction crackpot, I think it's worth noting that -pot is appended to various other "fused words" applied (usually, negatively) to people - moneypots, honeypot, fusspot, tosspot.
I think it's fairly obvious that crack't/cracked in this context is just a slightly more figurative way of saying broken, not functioning properly. Per @Oldcat's comment below, additional -pot component could be interpreted as head, brain, skull. Or it may be simply added for prosody (or by association with related forms), and not really add any specific extra meaning.