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Verb

to hack

1. To cough noisily.

   This cold is awful. I can't stop hacking.

2. To chop or cut down in a rough manner.

   They hacked the brush down and made their way through the jungle.

3. To withstand or put up with a difficult situation.

   Can you hack it out here with no electricity or running water?.

4. To play hackeysack .
5. To work with on an intimately technical level.

   I'm currently hacking distributed garbage collection.

6. To make a quick code change to patch a computer program.

   I hacked in a fix for this bug, but we'll still have to do a real fix later..

7. To gain unauthorized access to a computer system (e.g. website) by manipulating code. (Widely called "crack")

Related Terms

• hack in
• hack into
• hack up
• hacker

See Also

• crack
• frob
• tweak

Translations

• Dutch: kuchen (1), hakken (2)
• Finnish: yskiä (1), köhiä (1), hakata (alas/maahan)(2), selvitä (3), pärjätä (3), koodata (5), pätsätä (6, slang)
• Interlingua: hachar (2)
• Polish: hakować
• Volapük: cöpilön (2)

Noun

hack

1. A dry cough.
2. (slang) A taxicab.
3. (slang) A taxicab driver.
4. (Spanglish), an old tired horse.
5. A talented writer-for-hire, paid to put others' thoughts into felicitous language.
6. An untalented writer.

   He's nothing but a two-bit hack.

7. An interesting technical achievement, particularly in computer programming .
8. (computing) An small code change meant to patch a problem as quickly as possible.

Related Terms

• marginal hacks

See Also

• kludge

Translations

• Dutch: kuch m (1), knol (5)
• Finnish: yskä (1), köhä (1), taksi (2), pirssi (2, colloquial), taksikuski (3), koni (4)
• Interlingua: taxi (5)
• Spanish: taxi (2), jaca (4)
• Volapük: cöpilod (2)

Adjective

hack, not comparable

1. (literature) Having or requiring little talent.

   He's nothing but the typical hack writer.

   I got by on hack work for years before I finally published my novel.