phreak

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English

Etymology

Blend of phone +‎ freak.

Pronunciation

Noun

phreak (plural phreaks)

  1. (slang, dated) A person who engages in phone phreaking.
    • 1992, Bruce Sterling, The Hacker Crackdown, →ISBN:
      Phreaks can max-out 911 systems just by siccing a bunch of computer-modems on them in tandem, dialling them over and over until they clog.
    • 2007 August 20, Douglas Martin, “Joybubbles, 58, Peter Pan of Phone Hackers, Dies”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 2022-02-12:
      Joybubbles (the legal name of the former Joe Engressia since 1991), a blind genius with perfect pitch who accidentally found he could make free phone calls by whistling tones and went on to play a pivotal role in the 1970s subculture of “phone phreaks,” died on Aug. 8 in Minneapolis.

Verb

phreak (third-person singular simple present phreaks, present participle phreaking, simple past and past participle phreaked)

  1. (slang, transitive, intransitive, dated) To engage in phone phreaking.

Further reading

Anagrams