| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000. |
| |
| hack2 |
| |
| PRONUNCIATION: |  h k |
| NOUN: | 1. A horse used for riding or driving; a hackney. 2. A worn-out horse for hire; a jade. 3a. One who undertakes unpleasant or distasteful tasks for money or reward; a hireling. b. A writer hired to produce routine or commercial writing. 4. A carriage or hackney for hire. 5. Informal a. A taxicab. b. See hackie. | | VERB: | Inflected forms: hacked, hack·ing, hacks
| | TRANSITIVE VERB: | 1. To let out (a horse) for hire. 2. To make banal or hackneyed with indiscriminate use. | | INTRANSITIVE VERB: | 1. To drive a taxicab for a living. 2. To work for hire as a writer. 3. To ride on horseback at an ordinary pace. | | ADJECTIVE: | 1. By, characteristic of, or designating routine or commercial writing: hack prose. 2. Hackneyed; banal. | | PHRASAL VERB: | hack out Informal To produce (written material, for example), especially hastily or routinely: hacked out a weekly column. | | ETYMOLOGY: | Short for hackney.
| | |
| |
| The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition. Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by the Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
|
|
