Verb

(en verb)

To chop or cut down in a rough manner.

They hacked the brush down and made their way through the jungle.

* 1912 : (Edgar Rice Burroughs), (Tarzan of the Apes), Chapter 6

Among other things he found a sharp hunting knife, on the keen blade of which he immediately proceeded to cut his finger. Undaunted he continued his experiments, finding that he could hack and hew splinters of wood from the table and chairs with this new toy.

To cough noisily.

This cold is awful. I can't stop hacking .

To withstand or put up with a difficult situation.

Can you hack it out here with no electricity or running water?

(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.

(transitive, slang, computing) By extension, to gain unauthorised access to a computer or online account belonging to (a person or organisation).

When I logged into the social network, I discovered I'd been hacked .

(computing) To accomplish a difficult programming task.

He can hack like no one else and make the program work as expected.

(computing) To make a quick code change to patch a computer program, often one that, while being effective, is inelegant or makes the program harder to maintain.

I hacked in a fix for this bug, but we'll still have to do a real fix later.

(transitive, colloquial, by extension) To apply a trick, shortcut, skill, or novelty method to something to increase productivity, efficiency or ease.

I read up on dating tips so I can hack my sex life.

To work with on an intimately technical level.

I'm currently hacking distributed garbage collection.

(ice hockey) To strike an opponent's leg with one's hockey stick.

He's going to the penalty box after hacking the defender in front of the goal.

(ice hockey) To make a flailing attempt to hit the puck with a hockey stick.

There's a scramble in front of the net as the forwards are hacking at the bouncing puck.

(baseball) To swing at a pitched ball.

He went to the batter's box hacking .

To strike in a frantic movement.

* {{quote-news

, year=2010 , date=December 29 , author=Chris Whyatt , title=Chelsea 1 - 0 Bolton , work=BBC citation , page= , passage=Centre-back Branislav Ivanovic then took a wild slash at the ball but his captain John Terry saved Chelsea's skin by hacking the ball clear for a corner with Kevin Davies set to strike from just six yards out. }}

Verb

(en verb)

To lay (bricks) on a rack to dry.

(falconry) To keep (young hawks) in a state of partial freedom, before they are trained.

Verb

(en verb)

(dated) To make common or cliched; to vulgarise.

To ride a horse at a regular pace; to ride on a road (as opposed to riding cross-country etc.).

(obsolete) To be exposed or offered or to common use for hire; to turn prostitute.

(Hanmer)

(obsolete) To live the life of a drudge or hack.

(Goldsmith)

To use as a hack; to let out for hire.

To use frequently and indiscriminately, so as to render trite and commonplace.

* J. H. Newman

The word "remarkable" has been so hacked of late.

Verb

(en verb)

To play hackeysack.

Verb

To chop away at; to whittle down; to mow down.

* Shakespeare

Hew them to pieces; hack their bones asunder.

* 1912 : (Edgar Rice Burroughs), (Tarzan of the Apes), Chapter 6

Among other things he found a sharp hunting knife, on the keen blade of which he immediately proceeded to cut his finger. Undaunted he continued his experiments, finding that he could hack and hew splinters of wood from the table and chairs with this new toy.

To shape; to form.

to hew out a sepulchre

* Bible, Is. li. 1

Look unto the rock whence ye are hewn .

* Alexander Pope

rather polishing old works than hewing out new

(US) To act according to, to conform to; usually construed with (to).

* 1905 , Albert Osborn, : A Biography , ^] Jennings & Graham, [http://books.google.com/books?id=I3UEAAAAYAAJ&pg=RA1-PA428&dq=hewed page 428,

Few men measured up to his standard of righteousness; he hewed to the line.

* 1998 , and Lawrence Davidson, Pulp Culture: The Art of Fiction Magazines , Collectors Press, Inc., ISBN 1-888054-12-3, page 103,

Inside the stories usually hewed to a consistent formula: no matter how outlandish and weird the circumstances, in the end everything had to have a natural, if not plausible, ending—frequently, though not always, involving a mad scientist.

* 2008 , , Troublemaker: A Personal History of School Reform Since Sputnik , Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-12990-8, page 28,

Faculty members and students alike were buzzing with the fashionable nostrums that dominated U.S. education discourse in the late sixties,

* {{quote-news

, year=2012 , date=May 27 , author=Nathan Rabin , title=TV: Review: THE SIMPSONS (CLASSIC): “New Kid on the Block” (season 4, episode 8; originally aired 11/12/1992) , work=The Onion AV Club citation , page= , passage=Hewing to the old comedy convention of beginning a speech by randomly referencing something in eyesight, Homer begins his talk about the birds and the bees by saying that women are like refrigerators: they’re all about six feet tall and weigh three hundred pounds and make ice cubes. }}

*{{quote-web

, date =2013-10-02 , first =Alex , last =Pappademas , title =Leuqes! LEUQES! LEUQES!'' – The ''Shining sequel and what it says about Stephen King , site =Grantland.com , url =http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/9751517/the-shining-sequel-career-stephen-king , accessdate = 2013-10-16 }}

*:King recovered the rights on the condition that he'd stop publicly disparaging Kubrick's version. "For a long time I hewed that line," he told CBS News in June. "And then Mr. Kubrick died. So now I figured, what the hell. I've gone back to saying mean things about it."