verb To cut or chop something roughly, without precision.
- The gardener hacked at the thick hedge until it was roughly the right shape.
- I hacked off a chunk of bread with a blunt knife.
- He hacked through the overgrown branches with a machete.
verb To break into a computer system or account without authorization.
- Someone hacked into her email account and sent spam to all her friends.
- The company says criminals tried to hack its customer database.
- The group claimed they had hacked into the company's servers overnight.
verb To find a clever, often improvised shortcut for solving a problem.
- He hacked a solution together from spare parts in his shed.
- We hacked our way around the problem with a simple spreadsheet.
- She hacked together a workaround using duct tape and an old charger.
noun A clever shortcut, trick, or workaround.
- My favorite travel hack is rolling clothes instead of folding them.
- Students share study hacks online to save time before exams.
- Here's a quick hack for folding a fitted sheet.
noun A skilled but unglamorous or uncreative worker, especially a writer or programmer producing mediocre work for hire.
- The newspaper hired a hack to write the dull weekly column.
- He felt like a hack, turning out cheap stories for a paycheque.
- Critics dismissed him as a hack churning out formulaic scripts.
