hack

Meanings

1. 1
   noun

   a saddle horse used for transportation rather than sport etc

   The horse was just a hack, not a fancy show horse or racer, but it got me where I needed to go.

2. 2
   noun

   a horse kept for hire

   I hired a hack for a ride in the country.

3. 3
   noun

   an old or over-worked horse

   The tired old hack had earned its retirement to the pasture.

4. 4
   noun

   a car driven by a person whose job is to take passengers where they want to go in exchange for money

   We got into a hack at the airport taxi stand.

5. 5
   noun

   a tool such as a hoe, pick, or mattock used for breaking up the surface of the soil

   I worked the hard soil of the new garden with a hack.

6. 6
   noun

   a mediocre and disdained writer

   They're just a hack; none of their stories have any literary value at all.

7. 7
   noun

   a politician who belongs to a small clique that controls a political party for private rather than public ends

   The new mayor was nothing more than a hack.

8. 8
   verb

   cough spasmodically

   The patient with emphysema has been hacking all day.

Etymology

* As a German and Dutch surname, from the old Germanic name Hacco, shortened from names derived from *hakkju (“enclosure, hedge”). * Also as a German and Dutch surname, occupational surname for a butcher or woodcutter, see Hacker. * As a north/Low German surname, variant of Haack. * Also as a north/Low German surname, variant of Heck. * Also as a north/Low German surname for someone who lived by a marsh, from hach, hack (“boggy water”). * As an English surname, from the Middle English personal name Acke with a prosthetic H-, itself of North Germanic origin and a pet form of Old Norse Áskell, s…