hack

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

1. v. To cut or chop with repeated and irregular blows: hacked down the saplings.
2. v. To break up the surface of (soil).
3. v. Informal To alter (a computer program): hacked her text editor to read HTML.
4. v. To gain access to (a computer file or network) illegally or without authorization: hacked the firm's personnel database.
5. v. Slang To cut or mutilate as if by hacking: hacked millions off the budget.
6. v. Slang To cope with successfully; manage: couldn't hack a second job.
7. v. To chop or cut something by hacking.
8. v. Informal To write or refine computer programs skillfully.
9. v. Informal To use one's skill in computer programming to gain illegal or unauthorized access to a file or network: hacked into the company's intranet.
10. v. To cough roughly or harshly.
11. n. A rough, irregular cut made by hacking.
12. n. A tool, such as a hoe, used for hacking.
13. n. A blow made by hacking.
14. n. A rough, dry cough.
15. n. A horse used for riding or driving; a hackney.
16. n. A worn-out horse for hire; a jade.
17. n. One who undertakes unpleasant or distasteful tasks for money or reward; a hireling.
18. n. A writer hired to produce routine or commercial writing.
19. n. A carriage or hackney for hire.
20. n. Informal A taxicab.
21. n. Informal See hackie.
22. v. To let out (a horse) for hire.
23. v. To make banal or hackneyed with indiscriminate use.
24. v. To drive a taxicab for a living.
25. v. To work for hire as a writer.
26. v. To ride on horseback at an ordinary pace.
27. adj. By, characteristic of, or designating routine or commercial writing: hack prose.
28. adj. Hackneyed; banal.
29. hack out Informal To produce (written material, for example), especially hastily or routinely: hacked out a weekly column.

Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

1. To make irregular cuts in or upon; mangle by repeated strokes of a cutting instrument; cut or notch at random.
2. To dress off the more prominent parts of (stone) with a hack-hammer.
3. To chap; frost-bite, as the hands.
4. To kick, as one player another in foot-ball; bruise by kicking.
5. To break up, as clods of earth after plowing.
6. To chop; cut: as, to keep hacking away at a log.
7. To hop on one leg.
8. To toil; work laboriously; strive to attain something.
9. To stammer; stutter. Also hacker.
10. To emit short sharp sounds in coughing; cough slightly and frequently; be affected by a short, broken, dry cough. Compare hawk.
11. To chatter with cold.
12. n. A cut; a notch.
13. n. A cut in a tree to indicate a particular spot, or a series of cuts made in a number of trees as a guide through woods; a blazed line.
14. n. In foot-ball, a kick on the shin; also, a bruise produced by kicking.
15. n. A stroke on one's own account; turn at doing something: as, every one feels obliged to take a hack at it.
16. n. A blunt ax; a cutting-tool for notching or hacking trees to bleed them, as in gathering the sap of the maple.
17. n. A pick; a pickax; a mattock; a spade; a hack-iron.
18. n. The lights, liver, and heart of a boar or swine. Holme, 1688.
19. n. Broken or hesitating speech.
20. n. A grated frame. , , Specifically— A grated door; a hatch.
21. n. In falconry, partial liberty. See the extract.
22. To place (bricks) in rows to dry before burning.
23. n. A haw; a hedge.
24. n. A horse kept for hire; hence, a horse adapted for general service, such as that required of horses kept for hire, especially for driving and riding.
25. n. A carriage kept for hire; a hackney-coach.
26. n. A drudge; one who is overworked; especially, a literary drudge; a person hired to write according to direction or demand.
27. n. A procuress; a prostitute.
28. Hired; mercenary; much used or worn, like a hired horse; hackneyed: as, a hack writer.
29. To ride on the road; ride with an ordinary horse or pace: opposed to cross-country riding, cavalry riding, etc.
30. To drive in a hack.
31. To be common or vulgar; turn prostitute; have to do with prostitutes.
32. To let out for hire: as, to hack a horse.
33. n. Same as hackbut.
34. n. The board on which a hawk′ s meat is laid.
35. To do work as a hack or literary drudge: as, to hack for a living.

Wiktionary

1. n. falconry A board which the falcon's food is placed on; used by extension for the state of partial freedom in which they are kept before being trained.
2. n. A food-rack for cattle.
3. n. A rack used to dry bricks.
4. v. To lay (bricks) on a rack to dry.
5. v. falconry To keep (young hawks) in a state of partial freedom, before they are trained.
6. v. transitive, slang, computing To hack into; to gain unauthorized access to (a computer system, e.g., a website, or network) by manipulating code; to crack.
7. v. transitive, slang, computing By extension, to gain unauthorised access to a computer or online account belonging to (a person or organisation).
8. v. computing To accomplish a difficult programming task.
9. v. computing To make a quick code change to patch a computer program, often one that is inelegant or that makes the program harder to maintain.
10. v. To work on an intimately technical level.
11. v. ice hockey To strike an opponent's leg with one's hockey stick.
12. v. ice hockey To make a flailing attempt to hit the puck with a hockey stick.
13. v. baseball To swing at a pitched ball.
14. v. To strike in a frantic movement.
15. n. A gouge or notch made by such a blow.
16. n. A dry cough.
17. n. curling The foothold traditionally cut into the ice from which the person who throws the rock pushes off for delivery.
18. n. obsolete A mattock or a miner's pick.
19. n. computing, slang An illegal attempt to gain access to a computer network.
20. n. computing An interesting technical achievement, particularly in computer programming.
21. n. computing A small code change meant to patch a problem as quickly as possible.
22. n. computing An expedient, temporary solution, meant to be replaced with a more elegant solution at a later date.
23. n. slang, military Time check.
24. n. baseball A swing of the bat at a pitched ball by the batter.
25. n. pejorative Someone who is available for hire; hireling, mercenary.
26. n. slang A taxicab (hackney cab) driver.
27. n. pejorative An untalented writer.
28. n. pejorative One who is professionally successful despite producing mediocre work. (Usually applied to persons in a creative field.)
29. n. pejorative A talented writer-for-hire, paid to put others' thoughts into felicitous language.
30. n. politics A political agitator. (slightly derogatory)
31. v. dated To make common or cliched; to vulgarise.
32. v. To ride a horse at a regular pace; to ride on a road (as opposed to riding cross-country etc.).
33. v. obsolete To be exposed or offered or to common use for hire; to turn prostitute.
34. v. obsolete To live the life of a drudge or hack.
35. n. A small ball usually made of woven cotton or suede and filled with rice, sand or some other filler, for the use in hackeysack.
36. v. To play hackeysack.

GNU Webster's 1913

1. n. A frame or grating of various kinds; as, a frame for drying bricks, fish, or cheese; a rack for feeding cattle; a grating in a mill race, etc.
2. n. Unburned brick or tile, stacked up for drying.
3. v. To cut irregulary, without skill or definite purpose; to notch; to mangle by repeated strokes of a cutting instrument.
4. v. Fig.: To mangle in speaking.
5. v. (Computers) To program (a computer) for pleasure or compulsively; especially, to try to defeat the security systems and gain unauthorized access to a computer.
6. v. colloq. To bear, physically or emotionally.
7. v. (Football) To kick the shins of (an opposing payer).
8. v. To cough faintly and frequently, or in a short, broken manner.
9. n. A notch; a cut.
10. n. An implement for cutting a notch; a large pick used in breaking stone.
11. n. A hacking; a catch in speaking; a short, broken cough.
12. n. (Football) A kick on the shins, or a cut from a kick.
13. n. (Computers) A clever computer program or routine within a program to accomplish an objective in a non-obvious fashion.
14. n. (Computers) A quick and inelegant, though functional solution to a programming problem.
15. n. informal A taxicab.
16. n. A horse, hackneyed or let out for common hire; also, a horse used in all kinds of work, or a saddle horse, as distinguished from hunting and carriage horses.
17. n. A coach or carriage let for hire; a hackney coach; formerly, a coach with two seats inside facing each other; now, usually a taxicab.
18. n. The driver of a hack; a taxi driver; a hackman.
19. n. A bookmaker who hires himself out for any sort of literary work; an overworked man; a drudge.
20. n. A procuress.
21. v. To ride or drive as one does with a hack horse; to ride at an ordinary pace, or over the roads, as distinguished from riding across country or in military fashion.
22. adj. Hackneyed; hired; mercenary.
23. v. To use as a hack; to let out for hire.
24. v. To use frequently and indiscriminately, so as to render trite and commonplace.
25. v. To be exposed or offered to common use for hire; to turn prostitute.
26. v. To live the life of a drudge or hack.

WordNet 3.0

1. n. a saddle horse used for transportation rather than sport etc.
2. n. a horse kept for hire
3. v. cough spasmodically
4. v. cut away
5. n. a tool (as a hoe or pick or mattock) used for breaking up the surface of the soil
6. v. fix a computer program piecemeal until it works
7. v. kick on the shins
8. v. significantly cut up a manuscript
9. n. a mediocre and disdained writer
10. n. a politician who belongs to a small clique that controls a political party for private rather than public ends
11. v. be able to manage or manage successfully
12. n. an old or over-worked horse
13. v. cut with a hacking tool
14. n. one who works hard at boring tasks
15. n. a car driven by a person whose job is to take passengers where they want to go in exchange for money
16. v. kick on the arms