Hacking

Adjective

• Short and interrupted, broken, jerky; hacky.

  "A hacking cough. A hacking laugh. A hacking breath. A hacking cry."

"Anise will diminish the most hacking cough to where it is no longer irritating."

"A more hacking and harrowing cough I have never heard."

Noun

• (massage) The act of striking the muscles with the side of the hand.
• (obsolete, masonry) The separation of a course of stones into two smaller courses, when there are not enough large stones to form a single course.
• (computing) Playful solving of technical work that requires deep understanding, especially of a computer system.

  "From hacker: "A person who delights in having an intimate understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer networks in particular." — RFC 1392"

• (sports, chiefly American football, soccer, rugby) A kick in the shins.
• (obsolete) The operation of working over the faces of rough or worn grindstones with a hack-hammer.
• (obsolete, brick-making) The piling of bricks for drying.
• (pathology) A dry coughing; the emission of a succession of short coughs.
• (Britain, countable) A riding or journey on horseback. (Plural hackings.)
• (obsolete, gem-cutting) The cuts and grooves made in the metal laps by holding the cutting edge of a steel blade against them while in motion, for the purpose of providing receptacles or pockets for the powders using in cutting and polishing gems.
• (computing) Unauthorized attempts to bypass the security mechanisms of an information system or network. See also cracker.

Verb

• present participle of hack