hackster

English

Etymology

From hack (“to cut”) +‎ -ster.

Noun

hackster (plural hacksters)

1. (obsolete) A violent bully or thug; also, an assassin, a murderer.

   Synonym: (obsolete) hacker

   • 1649, J[ohn] Milton, chapter III, in ΕΙΚΟΝΟΚΛΆΣΤΗΣ [Eikonoklástēs] […], London: […] Matthew Simmons, […], →OCLC, pages 25–26:

     […] Happy times; when Braves and Hackſters, the onely contented Members of his Goverment, were thought the fitteſt and the faithfulleſt to defend his [the King's] Perſon againſt the diſcontents of a Parlament and all good Men.

   • 1653, Thomas Urquhart and Peter Antony Motteux (translators), François Rabelais (original), Pantagruel, Chapter XVI:

     At one time he assembled three or four especial good hacksters and roaring boys, made them in the evening drink like Templars, afterwards led them till they came under St. Genevieve, or about the college of Navarre, and, at the hour that the watch was coming up that way--which he knew by putting his sword upon the pavement, and his ear by it, and, when he heard his sword shake, it was an infallible sign that the watch was near at that instant--then he and his companions took a tumbrel or dung-cart, and gave it the brangle, hurling it with all their force down the hill, and so overthrew all the poor watchmen like pigs, and then ran away upon the other side; for in less than two days he knew all the streets, lanes, and turnings in Paris as well as his Deus det.

2. (informal) One who hacks computers; a hacker.
   • 2014, Mamata Anurag Salakapurapu, Inside-Out: A Journal out of a Spiritual Journey:

     You hacked my ID the other day, didn't you? So you are my hackster!

   • 2021, Mick Ebeling, Not Impossible: Do What Can't Be Done, page 114:

     We had hoped that some little gang of crazy hacksters somewhere would do what we did with the EyeWriter—look at it, play with it, improve it, find people who needed it, give it away. We just never imagined that the little gang of crazy hacksters would be part of one of the biggest technology companies in the world.

Anagrams

• Heckarts, Thackers