Hacks

How to spell hacks

5 letters · 1 syllable

How to pronounce hacks

What does hacks mean?

1. nounClever shortcuts or practical tricks that make a task easier.
2. verbCuts something roughly or repeatedly, as with an axe or blade.
3. verbGains unauthorised access to a computer system or network.
4. nounWriters or journalists who produce dull, unoriginal work for money.

Hacks in a sentence

• noun

  These kitchen hacks save me an hour every evening.

• verb

  He hacks at the thick branch until it finally splits.

• verb

  The intruder hacks into corporate servers to steal data.

• noun

  The tabloid hacks chased the celebrity for a cheap headline.

• noun

  The blog lists ten budget travel hacks for families.

• verb

  The gardener hacks through the brambles with a machete.

Where does hacks come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

The base word hack comes from the Old English haccian, meaning 'to cut into pieces' or 'to chop roughly', a verb related to similar words across the old Germanic languages. For centuries it kept that literal sense of crude, repeated cutting, which is why a clumsy chopping motion is still called hacking. From the idea of doing rough, mechanical, drudge work, hack later came to describe a writer who churns out dull material for hire, and even a worn-out hired horse. In the twentieth century the cutting sense was borrowed by early computer culture, first for ingenious tinkering and then for breaking into systems. The newest sense, a clever shortcut or trick, grew from that same playful tinkering and exploded in popularity online, and all of these meanings simply add the regular plural or verb ending -s to form 'hacks'.

How the word is built

• hack (Old English haccian: to cut into pieces)
• -s (plural noun / third-person singular verb)