DDoS

American

[dee-daws, ‐-dos, dee-dee-oh-es] / ˈdiˈdɔs, ‐ˈdɒs, ˈdiˈdiˌoʊˈɛs /

adjective

pertaining to or being an incident in which a network of computers floods an online resource with high levels of unwanted traffic so that it is inaccessible to legitimate service requests.

a DDoS attack.

DDoS British

abbreviation

distributed denial of service: a method of attacking a computer system by flooding it with so many messages that it is obliged to shut down

"Collins English Dictionary — Complete & Unabridged" 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Etymology

Origin of DDoS

1995–2000; D(istributed) D(enial) o(f) S(ervice)

Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

Federal authorities disrupted four large DDoS botnets, including Kimwolf, on March 19, following Google’s January action against Ipidea’s domains.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 3, 2026

Christmas came and went without a DDoS disaster.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 3, 2026

A distributed denial of service attack - or DDoS for short - is an attempt to overload a website, which makes it hard to use or otherwise inaccessible..

From BBC • Aug. 13, 2024

“A DDoS attack sends a very large number of signals to an online target to disrupt it,” Anthony Lim, Director of the Centre for Strategic Cyberspace and International Studies in Singapore, told the BBC.

From BBC • Aug. 12, 2024

A DDoS attack employs a network of distributed computers to direct junk traffic at the target site in an effort to render it unusable.

From Seattle Times • Dec. 12, 2023

Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023