hack1

verb

• 1 [with object] cut with rough or heavy blows:I watched them hack the branches [no object]:men hack at the coalface
• kick wildly or roughly:he had to race from his line to hack the ball into the stand

• 2 [no object] gain unauthorized access to data in a system or computer:they hacked into the bank’s computer [with object]:someone hacked his computer from another location (as noun hacking)outlawing hacking has not stopped it
• program quickly and roughly.

• 3 [no object] cough persistently:I was waking up in the middle of the night and coughing and hacking for hours

• 4 [usually with negative] (hack it) informal manage; cope:lots of people leave because they can’t hack it

noun

• 1a rough cut, blow, or stroke:he was sure one of us was going to take a hack at him
• (in sport) a kick or a stroke with a stick inflicted on another player.
• a notch cut in the ice, or a peg inserted, to steady the foot when delivering a stone in curling.
• a tool for rough striking or cutting, e.g. a mattock or a miner’s pick.
• archaic a gash or wound.

• 2 informal an act of computer hacking: the challenge of the hack itself
• a piece of computer code providing a quick or inelegant solution to a particular problem:this hack doesn’t work on machines that have a firewall