New words for September 28, 2008
A
ACK 
interjection
- as a question, to enquire whether someone is present.
Speaker: ACK?
Response: ACK.More words meaning: abbreviations (list of)
More words meaning: computer slang
More words meaning: inquiries (list of) - to affirm one's presence. An appropriate response to ping.
Speaker: Are you there?
Response: ACK.Speaker: ping
Response: ACK.More words meaning: abbreviations (list of)
More words meaning: computer slang
More words meaning: present, near, directly - an exclamation of surprise or alarm.
Ack!
More words meaning: exclamations (list of)
- yes.
Speaker: Do you want to shop for monitors?
Response: ACK.More words meaning: abbreviations (list of)
More words meaning: computer slang
More words meaning: yes, agreements (statements of)
origin
- ACK is an abbreviation of "acknowledged," used commonly in computing. See also NAK. Note that "ack" as an exclamation of surprise or alarm has no relation to computing.
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B
barf 
interjection
- Term of disgust.
You hooked up with him? Like, barf!
More words meaning: exclamations (list of)
More words meaning: gross, disgusting, creepy
intransitive verb
- to vomit.
More words meaning: to vomit
by JB C., New York, NY, USA, Sep 14 1997 (Edit definition)
- To fail to work because of unacceptable input, perhaps with a suitable error message, perhaps not.
The division operation barfs if you try to divide by 0.
The text editor barfs if you try to read in a new file before writing out the old one.
More words meaning: computer slang
More words meaning: to break, ruin, destroy
noun
- vomit.
You got barf on your shoes.
More words meaning: vomit
- "Barf" is sometimes also used as a metasyntactic variable like "foo" and "bar".
More words meaning: computer slang
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Slang terms with the same root words:
- barf: insta-barf
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box 
noun
- an attractive female.
More words meaning: attractive female
by C. Mathey, FL, USA, Jun 21 1997 (Edit definition)
- an older model Chevy vehicle.
More words meaning: car, motorcycle, or other vehicle
- A computer. Often identified by its operating system, e.g. "Unix box" or "Windows box."
We preprocess the data on Unix boxes before handing it up to the mainframe.
More words meaning: computer slang
by Morgan D., Seattle, WA, USA, Aug 30 2003 (Edit definition)
- a vagina.
More words meaning: vulva ('vagina'), female genitalia
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Slang terms with the same root words:
- box: bang (one's) box – boom box – (show 17 more)
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bug 
intransitive verb
- to joke; KID.
Ya buggin'.
More words meaning: to joke, kid, or jest
- to be extremely excited.
I'm buggin'!
More words meaning: excited, energetic
by Wendy R., Dallas, TX 75231, USA, May 10 2007 (Edit definition)
- to react with extreme or irrational distress or composure; FREAK OUT.
I was bugging after she got home.
More words meaning: to become angry, go crazy, freak out
noun
- An unwanted and unintended property of a program or piece of hardware, especially one that causes it to malfunction.
There's a bug in the editor: it writes things out backwards.
The system crashed because of a hardware bug.
Fred is a winner, but he has a few bugs. (i.e. Fred is a good guy, but he has a few personality problems).
More words meaning: a mistake, bad idea, wrong, inappropriate
More words meaning: broken
More words meaning: computer slang
transitive verb
- to pester or annoy.
Why do you keep bugging me? Go away.
More words meaning: to annoy, interfere, intrude
origin
- Regarding the "unwanted and unintended property" meaning:
Admiral Grace Hopper (an early computing pioneer better known for inventing the programming language COBOL) liked to tell a story in which a technician solved a malfunction in the Harvard Mark II machine by pulling an actual insect out from between the contacts of one of its relays, and she subsequently promulgated "bug" in its hackish sense as a joke about the incident (though, as she was careful to admit, she was not there when it happened). For many years the logbook associated with the incident and the actual bug in question (a moth) sat in a display case at the Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC). The entire story, with a picture of the logbook and the moth taped into it, is recorded in the Annals of the History of Computing, Vol. 3, No. 3 (July 1981), pp. 285--286. The text of the log entry (from September 9, 1947), reads, "1545 Relay #70 Panel F (moth) in relay. First actual case of bug being found."
This wording establishes that the term was already in use at the time in its current specific sense, and Hopper herself reports that the term "bug" was regularly applied to problems in radar electronics during WWII.
Indeed, the use of "bug" to mean an industrial defect was already established in Thomas Edison's time, and a more specific and rather modern use can be found in an electrical handbook from 1896 (Hawkin's New Catechism of Electricity, Theo. Audel & Co.) which says, "The term "bug" is used to a limited extent to designate any fault or trouble in the connections or working of electric apparatus."
It further notes that the term is said to have originated in quadruplex telegraphy and have been transferred to all electric apparatus.
The latter observation may explain a common folk etymology of the term: that it came from telephone company usage, in which bugs in a telephone cable were blamed for noisy lines.
Historians of the field inform us that the term was regularly used in the early days of telegraphy to refer to a variety of semi-automatic telegraphy keyers that would send a string of dots if you held them down. In fact, the Vibroplex keyers (which were among the most common of this type) even had a graphic of a beetle on them (and still do)! While the ability to send repeated dots automatically was very useful for professional morse code operators, these were also significantly trickier to use than the older manual keyers, and it could take some practice to ensure one didn't introduce extraneous dots into the code by holding the key down a fraction too long. In the hands of an inexperienced operator, a Vibroplex "bug" on the line could mean that a lot of garbled Morse would soon be coming your way.
Further, the term has long been used among radio technicians to describe a device that converts electromagnetic field variations into acoustic signals. It is used to trace radio interference and look for dangerous radio emissions. Radio community usage derives from the roach-like shape of the first versions used by 19th century physicists. The first versions consisted of a coil of wire (roach body), with the two wire ends sticking out and bent back to nearly touch forming a spark gap (roach antennae). The bug is to the radio technician what the stethoscope is to the stereotypical medical doctor. This sense is almost certainly ancestral to modern use of "bug" meaning a covert monitoring device, but may also have contributed to the use of the term for the effects of radio interference itself.
Actually, use of "bug" in the general sense of a disruptive event goes back to Shakespeare! (Henry VI, part III - Act V, Scene II: King Edward:
"So, lie thou there. Die thou; and die our fear; For Warwick was a bug that fear'd us all."
In the first edition of Samuel Johnson's dictionary one meaning of "bug" is "A frightful object; a walking spectre." This is traced to "bugbear", a Welsh term for a variety of mythological monster which (to complete the circle) has recently been reintroduced into the popular lexicon through fantasy role-playing games. In any case, in jargon the word almost never refers to insects.
A careful discussion of the etymological issues can be found in a paper by Fred R. Shapiro, 1987, "Entomology of the Computer Bug: History and Folklore", American Speech 62(4):376-378.
As of late 1990, the NSWC still had the bug, but had unsuccessfully tried to get the Smithsonian to accept it. The present curator of their History of American Technology Museum didn't know this and agreed that it would make a worthwhile exhibit. It was moved to the Smithsonian in mid-1991, but due to space and money constraints was not actually exhibited for years afterwards.
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Slang terms with the same root words:
- bug: bug boy – bug-eyed – (show 5 more)
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G
geek out 
intransitive verb
- to be so intoxicated from illegal stimulants that one loses complete control over one's body.
Oh man, she's geekin' out over there!
More words meaning: to do stimulants (e.g. methamphetamines, caffeine)
by Tanya F., Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Feb 20 2003 (Edit definition)
- To engage in a binge of nerdy activities.
I spent all weekend geeking out.
More words meaning: computer slang
More words meaning: to accomplish, work hard - To temporarily enter techno-nerd mode while in a non-hackish context, for example at parties held near computer equipment. Especially used when you need to do or say something highly technical and don't have time to explain:
Pardon me while I geek out for a moment.
More words meaning: computer slang
More words meaning: to accomplish, work hard
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Slang terms with the same root words:
- geek: alpha geek – geek – (show 5 more)
- out: all blowed out – amped-out – (show 267 more)
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H
hack (one) off 
verb
- to make one angry.
She really hacks me off.
More words meaning: to become angry, go crazy, freak out
origin
- This may come from U.S. Navy slang, in which officers under discipline are sometimes said to be "in hack" and one may speak of "hacking off the C.O." (commanding officer.)
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Slang terms with the same root words:
- hack: hack – hacked off – (show 10 more)
- off: all bets are off – back off – (show 180 more)
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L
load a fat one 
verb
- to place a wad of chewing tobacco in one's mouth.
Hey Chris, let's load a fat one!
More words meaning: chewing-tobacco
by Rod Smith, Tulsa, OK, USA, Feb 19 1998 (Edit definition)
- to load a marijuana smoking device to overflowing.
More words meaning: to smoke marijuana
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Slang terms with the same root words:
- fat: chew the fat – crack a fat – (show 12 more)
- load: arse-load – ass-load – (show 20 more)
- one: afraid of one's shadow – back to square one – (show 85 more)
- a: 12 points short of a pica – a – (show 530 more)
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O
owned 
notes
- See own.
by WalterGR, Sacramento, CA, USA, Sep 28 2008 (Edit definition)
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T
torch
- to over-apply flame to
man you torched the bowl, fucked the taste up
- to light initially, as in start, a bowl, cig, etc.
im ready, torch it
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Slang terms with the same root words:
- torch: pass the torch – torch up
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