hacker

Etymology

It is formed from English hack + -er, from the verb hack, to cut or chop.^[2][3][4][5] The verb goes back to a verb found in Old English tōhaccian (“to hack to pieces”),^[3] from Proto-West Germanic *hakkōn,^[3][6] the source also of Old Frisian hackia, Dutch hakken and German hacken.^[3][6] Surnames such as Adam le Hacker (1224) and Johannes Hakyere (1296) may show the word earlier, or a formation from the noun hack, a hacking tool, meaning maker of hacks.^[2][7] For the computer senses, the American Heritage Dictionary suggests either hacker, an inept golfer or tennis player, or hack, a practical joke or clever scheme, from a dialect verb hack, to confuse or play a trick on.^[8][9]

Earliest recorded meaning

A tool for hacking or chopping, such as an axe or cleaver, and formerly also a hoe: before 1398, in John Trevisa's translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus.^[2][7]

Semantic evolution

From the late 16th century a hacker was also a person who hacks: a violent thug or murderer (1576–1652), a cutter or slasher (from 1593), and for a time a person who hoes with a hack.^[2] In the American turpentine industry the hackers were the workers who cut channels in pine trunks to collect the resin, and their curved knife was also called a hacker.^[10][2] In sport, chiefly golf, a hacker has been a persistent but unskilful amateur since 1934.^[2][8] The computer senses arose at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology:^[3][2] the OED's first record, from the student paper The Tech in 1963, is of people who broke into the telephone network,^[2][11] and the New Partridge has the sense of a computer enthusiast from 1959.^[11] The OED dates "an enthusiastic, skilled programmer" from 1969.^[2] Etymonline dates the sense of gaining unauthorized access to computer records to 1975, and notes that it may have grown from MIT slang for a person who works like a hack at software, or from hack in the sense of a creative prank.^[3] The Oxford English Dictionary of 1989 dated the two computer senses only to 1976 and 1983;^[12] the revised entry of 2016 moved them back to 1969 and 1963.^[2] In current use the sense of breaking into systems comes first in Oxford's dictionaries.^[13]

Timeline

• 1224 – the surname Adam le Hacker.^[2]
• before 1398 – a tool for chopping or cutting.^[2]
• 1576 – a violent thug, a murderer (obsolete by 1652).^[2]
• 1593 – a person who hacks, a cutter.^[2]
• 1856 – a worker who cuts pines for turpentine.^[10]
• 1934 – an unskilful amateur at golf.^[2]
• 1959 – a computer enthusiast.^[11]
• 1963 – a person who breaks into the telephone network or a computer system.^[2][11]
• 1969 – an enthusiastic, skilled programmer.^[2]

Meanings

Noun

1. A person who uses computers to gain unauthorized access to a system, network or data.^{[13][8][14][2]}
2. (informal) An enthusiastic and skilful computer programmer or user.^{[13][8][14][2]}
3. A person who plays a sport, especially golf or tennis, persistently but without skill: a weekend golf hacker.^[8][14][2]
4. A person or tool that hacks or cuts roughly.^[13][14][2]

Related words

• hack

Usage notes

In American slang hacker also means a taxi driver, from hack in the sense of a cab.^[5][15][16] A dialect verb hacker, to stammer or hum and haw, is a frequentative of hack.^[4][2][5]

References

1. ^ a b Wiktionary, the free dictionary, https://en.wiktionary.org
2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v Oxford English Dictionary Online (accessed March 2026), Oxford: Oxford University Press
3. ^ a b c d e f Harper, Douglas. Online Etymology Dictionary, https://www.etymonline.com
4. ^ a b Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (2002), 5th ed., ed. William R. Trumble and Angus Stevenson, Oxford: Oxford University Press
5. ^ a b c Merriam-Webster Unabridged Dictionary (2024), online ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
6. ^ a b Köbler, Gerhard (2014), Germanisches Wörterbuch, 5th ed., online, koeblergerhard.de/wikiling
7. ^ a b Wilton, Dave, Wordorigins.org, wordorigins.org, p. %s
8. ^ a b c d e The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (online 2024), 5th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
9. ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (2000), 4th ed., Boston: Houghton Mifflin
10. ^ a b Cassidy, Frederic G. & Joan Houston Hall (eds.) (1985–2002), Dictionary of American Regional English, vols I–IV, Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press
11. ^ a b c d Dalzell, Tom; Victor, Terry, eds. (2013), The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English, 2nd ed., London: Routledge
12. ^ Simpson, J. A.; Weiner, E. S. C., eds. (1989), The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed., Oxford: Clarendon Press
13. ^ a b c d Stevenson, Angus, ed. (2010), Oxford Dictionary of English, 3rd ed., Oxford: Oxford University Press
14. ^ a b c d Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary (2003), 11th ed., Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster
15. ^ Gove, Philip Babcock, ed. (1961), Webster's Third New International Dictionary of the English Language, Unabridged, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam
16. ^ Green, Jonathon (2010), Green's Dictionary of Slang, London: Chambers; digital ed. 2016–, https://greensdictofslang.com