Word: hacker Part of Speech: noun Etymology: From Late Middle English hackere, hakker, hakkere (“one who cuts wood, woodchopper, woodcutter; (rare) tool for cutting wood”), from hakken, hacke (“to cut (something) with a chopping action, hack; to make a chopping action”) + -er(e) (suffix forming agent nouns). Hakken is derived from Old English *haccian (“to hack”), from Proto-West Germanic *hakkōn (“to chop, hack”), from Proto-Germanic *hakkōną (“to chop, hack”), from Proto-Indo-European *keg-, *keng- (“to be sharp; a handle; a hook; a peg”). The English word may be analysed as hack (“to chop or cut down in a rough manner”) + -er (suffix forming agent nouns). Pronunciation: /hækə/, /hækəɹ/ 1. Someone who hacks. Example: A hacker hacked into his computer account yesterday. Example: I'm a computer crook, the Willie Sutton of hackers. I break into computer systems for fun—and profit. To me, the Apple is the forbidden fruit. 2. Someone who hacks. Example: [O]ne good hacker, being a luſty labourer, vvill at good eaſe hacke or cut more then halfe an Acre of ground in a day; […] Example: In January or February the "hacker," with his keen-bladed ax, begins the round which ends the season. […] His task is to cut the "boxes" in which the thick gum of the wounded tree will collect. A box is a wide incision about six inches deep, a wedge shaped cut in the tree, […] About a quart of sap is taken from each box by means of the trowel-shaped scoop used by the dipper, and then the hacker comes along and starts the flow afresh by wounding the tree again. 3. Someone who hacks. Example: a tennis hacker Example: And then Billy was a middle-aged optometrist again, playing hacker’s golf this time—on a blazing summer Sunday morning. 4. Someone who hacks. Labels: dated Example: The Electrical Engineering Department, J. McKenzie in particular, for allowing me to use the PDP-1 computer to do the extensive computations, draw graphs, and even type this thesis. In this connection Charles Landau did some of the programming, Luella Thompson did most of the typing, and W. B. Ackermann helped when the machine would not cooperate. Many other computer hackers also willingly offered advice. Example: A hacker starts with nothing but a dream and a floppy disk and presently finds himself in a business that's doubled and trebled. Three "diskzines" – magazines on floppy disks – started cheaply by entrepreneurs who placed ads in obscure computer journals […] 5. Someone who hacks. Labels: broadly, dated Example: food hacker Example: growth hacker 6. Someone who hacks. Example: a phone hacker 7. Someone who hacks. Labels: obsolete 8. Something that hacks; a device or tool for hacking; specifically, an axe used for cutting tree branches or wood. Example: Thomas Limbrick, who was only nine years of age, said he lived with his mother when Deborah was beat: that his mother throwed her down all along with her hands; and then against a wall, and kicked her in the belly: that afterwards she picked her up, and beat her with the hacker on the side of the head; wiped the blood off with a dish-clout, and took her up to bed after she was dead. Example: When the dipping is thus over, the next work is to "chip" or scarify the tree immediately over the box, […] This is done by an instrument usually called a "hacker," sometimes "shave." Its form is somewhat like a "round shave," narrowing at the cutting place to the diameter of an inch, with a shank, to be fixed securely into a strong, heavy handle of about two feet in length, while the faces of the trees are low, but the handle is made longer as years advance the faces higher. 9. Something that hacks; a device or tool for hacking; specifically, an axe used for cutting tree branches or wood. Labels: UK, regional Example: The upper half of each swede-turnip had been eaten off by the live-stock, and it was the business of the two women to grab up the lower or earthy half of the root with a hooked fork called a hacker, that it might be eaten also. Example: Hack. […] To loosen the earth round potatoes, preparatory to earthing them up. This is done with a ‘tater-hacker,’ an old three-grained garden-fork, which by bending down the tines or ‘grains’ at right angles to the handle has been converted into something resembling a rake, but used as a hoe.