: to gain illegal access to (a computer network, system, etc.)
In the last decade they have hacked computer networks in Estonia, Ukraine, Poland, Germany, France, and Bulgaria—often stealing data.The New York Times
… perhaps I would have become one of those lost souls wandering the basement of MIT playing with computers and hacking the telephone network. Lee Smolin
: a rough or irregular cutting stroke : a hacking blow
5
: restriction to quarters as punishment for naval officers—usually used in the phrase under hack
6
a
: a usually creatively improvised solution to a computer hardware or programming problem or limitation
… the 33 MHz processor that powers these PDAs is too weak to drive MP3 music files. Sony created a neat hack: it added a digital-signal processing chip that bypasses the operating system. Josh Quittner
b
: an act or instance of gaining or attempting to gain illegal access to a computer or computer system
Methods for protecting what needs to be protected are available in the marketplace and work very well. Most security breaches are insider jobs, not hacks. Samuel L. Earp
The center is divided into seven directorates. Among these is the Air Force Computer Emergency Response Team, whose nonclassified function is to report vulnerabilities and security violations such as hacks and virus incidents. Jim Wilson
Almost 100 million cars … are vulnerable to numerous hacks that could let thieves unlock them remotely through a wireless signal … Cara McGoogan
c
: a clever tip or technique for doing or improving something
We asked entrepreneurs across industries to share their favorite productivity hacks, from useful organization apps to clever tricks for cutting down meeting times. Richard Feloni
Adjective the abrupt revelation of an enemy masquerading as a friend is such a hack plot twist
Word History
Etymology
Verb (1)
Middle English hacken, hakken, going back to Old English *haccian (Class II weak verb, attested in the prefixed forms ahaccian "to hack out, peck out [eyes]," tohaccian "to hack to pieces"), going back to West Germanic *hakkō- (whence also Old Frisian tohakia "to hack to pieces," Middle Dutch hacken, haken "to cut with repeated blows," Middle High German hacken), of uncertain origin
Note: This West Germanic verb is conventionally connected to the etymon of hook entry 1, which is manifested in a variety of vowel grades, on the assumption that hacking or chopping might be done with a hook-shaped implement.
Noun (1)
Middle English hak, hacke, noun derivative of hacken "to hack entry 1"
verbal derivative of hack, noun, "board on which a hawk's food is placed, state of partial liberty under which a hawk is kept before training," of uncertain origin
Note: The noun has been taken as a derivative of hack entry 1, on the assumption that "hacked," i.e. chopped, food was placed on such a board; this appears to gain credence from a passage in a fifteenth-century manual of falconry (British Library MS. Harley 2340): "se hym euer to hackynge … and till he flyethe fro tre to tre, he woll come to hackynge; then he woll not come, but thu moste hacke and leue his mete opon a borde in his neste" (see A.E.H. Swaen, "The booke of Hawkyng after prince Edwarde Kyng of Englande and its relation to the Book of St Albans," Studia Neophilogica, vol. 16 [1943], p. 26).