denial-of-service

American  

[dih-nahy-uhl-uhv-sur-vis] / dɪˈnaɪ əl əvˈsɜr vɪs /

adjective

Digital Technology.

1. pertaining to or being an incident in which a computer or computer network is disabled, disrupting access or service.

   a website hit by a denial-of-service attack; unintentional denial-of-service problems.

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Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• denial of service
  noun

Etymology

Origin of denial-of-service

First recorded in 1970–75

Example Sentences

Called distributed denial of service, or DDoS, attacks, these were massive floods of junk internet data designed to knock websites offline by overwhelming the data pipes that connected them.

From The Wall Street Journal • Apr. 3, 2026

"What we've been seeing is consistent with what we've seen in past denial of service attacks, rather than a configuration or coding error in the platform," he told BBC News.

From BBC • Mar. 10, 2025

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

None of the three companies said who was responsible for the denial of service attacks, which have historically been difficult to pin down.

From Reuters • Oct. 11, 2023

The airports fell victim to Killnet apparently organizing distributed denial of service attacks, which overwhelm internet targets with a flood of traffic.

From Washington Times • Oct. 11, 2022