reverse engineer

verb

reverse engineered; reverse engineering; reverse engineers

transitive verb

: to disassemble and examine or analyze in detail (a product or device) to discover the concepts involved in manufacture usually in order to produce something similar

reverse engineering noun

Example Sentences

They reverse engineered the software.

Recent Examples on the Web

But Lumafield isn’t building these machines to satisfy our curiosity or to help reverse engineer. —Sean Hollister, The Verge, 18 Mar. 2023

But with the advent of gas chromatography, technology that was developed in the 20th century and allows for the separation, identification, and quantification of aroma compounds in a perfume sample, new competitors can simply reverse engineer a fragrance and resell it under a new name. —Emily Jensen, Allure, 1 Mar. 2023

Any attempt to reverse engineer the chip/block functionality is thus hindered. —IEEE Spectrum, 10 Nov. 2022

Currently in the works is a follow-up study designed to reverse engineer the process. —Charlotte Hu, Discover Magazine, 30 Jan. 2018

Turning Tobacco Into Cocaine To learn more about the process, the team had to reverse engineer cocaine by tinkering with the genes in another plant, in this case tobacco. —Joshua Rapp Learn, Discover Magazine, 27 Feb. 2023

Imagine what the success of your business looks like, then reverse engineer it. —Peter Boolkah, Forbes, 23 Feb. 2023

The dish is Harvey’s homage to the roast chicken at Palena, a legendary plate that, perhaps more than any other in the history of D.C. dining, inspired home cooks to reverse engineer it in a vain attempt to unlock its mysteries. —Tim Carman, Washington Post, 17 Jan. 2023

Other fossil melanosome discoveries have enabled my collaborators and me to reverse engineer the environment in which extinct organisms lived. —Jakob Vinther, Scientific American, 1 Mar. 2017

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Word History

First Known Use

1973, in the meaning defined above