Hacking

How to spell hacking

7 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce hacking

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does hacking mean?

1. nounThe activity of gaining unauthorised access to computer systems or data, or of programming cleverly and inventively.
2. verbCutting or chopping something roughly with heavy, repeated blows.
3. adjectiveDescribing a dry, harsh, repeated cough.

Hacking in a sentence

• noun

  The bank reported a serious hacking attempt on its online systems.

• verb

  He spent the morning hacking away at the overgrown hedge.

• adjective

  A dry hacking cough kept her awake for most of the night.

• noun

  She studied ethical hacking to help companies test their security.

• verb

  The workers were hacking through dense brush to clear a path.

• adjective

  The patient came in with a persistent hacking cough and a sore chest.

Where does hacking come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base verb 'hack' comes from Old English 'haccian', meaning to cut or chop something into pieces with rough, repeated blows, and it shares roots with Dutch 'hakken' and German 'hacken', both carrying the same chopping sense. The harsh, repetitive action behind the word explains why a dry, jerky cough came to be called a 'hacking' cough, since it sounds like something being chopped. In the world of horses, 'hacking' grew from an older noun 'hack' for an ordinary riding horse (itself a shortening of Hackney, a place once famous for horse trading), so to go hacking is simply to ride out for exercise. The computing sense is much younger: it emerged in mid twentieth century American university culture, where a clever, improvised solution was admiringly called a 'hack', and only later did 'hacking' shift toward breaking into computer systems. Because the word is built so plainly from hack plus -ing, its spelling rarely troubles adults; the only point to watch is keeping the single c and doubling the k.

How the word is built

• hack (to cut or chop roughly)
• -ing (present participle / gerund suffix)