1
: one that hacks
2
: a person who is inexperienced or unskilled at a particular activity
a tennis hacker
3
: an expert at programming and solving problems with a computer
4
: a person who illegally gains access to and sometimes tampers with information in a computer system
Examples of hacker in a Sentence
My friends and I have been playing golf for years, but we're still just a bunch of hackers.
the company's security experts spent days trying to figure out how a hacker could have gotten past the firewall
Recent Examples on the Web
This represents asymmetric warfare for the digital age, where a relatively small number of hackers can potentially neutralize the world’s most advanced economy by weaponizing its own digital infrastructure.
—
Bob Ackerman, Forbes.com, 10 Sep. 2025
And last October, hackers targeted American Water, the largest wastewater utility company in the country.
—NPR, 8 Sep. 2025
Still, there are some signs the hacker may have successfully targeted other npm package maintainers.
—Michael Kan, PC Magazine, 8 Sep. 2025
Once it's installed, Stealerium is designed to steal a wide variety of data and send it to the hacker via services like Telegram, Discord, or the SMTP protocol in some variants of the spyware, all of which is relatively standard in infostealers.
—Ryan Whitwam, ArsTechnica, 4 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for hacker
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Bob Ackerman, Forbes.com, 10 Sep. 2025
And last October, hackers targeted American Water, the largest wastewater utility company in the country.
—NPR, 8 Sep. 2025
Still, there are some signs the hacker may have successfully targeted other npm package maintainers.
—Michael Kan, PC Magazine, 8 Sep. 2025
Once it's installed, Stealerium is designed to steal a wide variety of data and send it to the hacker via services like Telegram, Discord, or the SMTP protocol in some variants of the spyware, all of which is relatively standard in infostealers.
—Ryan Whitwam, ArsTechnica, 4 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for hacker
Cite this Entry
“Hacker.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hacker. Accessed 13 Sep. 2025.
Copy CitationKids Definition
hacker
noun
hack·er
ˈhak-ər 
1
: one that hacks
2
: a person who is unskilled at a particular activity
3
: an expert at programming and solving problems with a computer
4
: a person who illegally gains access to a computer system
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