phreak
Americannoun
verb (used without object)
verb (used with object)
Etymology
Origin of phreak
First recorded in 1970–75; altered spelling of freak 1 ( def. 6 ), copying ph- of phone 1
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.
See Examples For:
Everyone is his own cognitive hacker, his own potential phone phreak.
From New York Times ● Sep. 21, 2017
Perhaps the ultimate phone phreak prank belongs to Captain Crunch and a friend of his, though their material came courtesy of Johnny Carson’s joke writers.
From Salon ● Feb. 16, 2013
Woz adopted the phone phreak handle “Berkeley Blue” while Jobs became “Oaf Tobar.”
From Salon ● Feb. 16, 2013
Swartz was too young to be a phone phreak like Tufte.
From Slate ● Feb. 1, 2013
“The captain” was Cap’n Crunch, and “the whistle” was the famous toy plastic whistle of phone phreak lore.
From "Ready Player One: A Novel" by Ernest Cline
He had been on a phreaked call to Canada at the time and he hadn't bothered to hang up when the cops arrived.
From Underground by Suelette Dreyfus
True, he phreaked from her home office phone, but she had no idea how to hack or phreak.
From Underground by Suelette Dreyfus
After he taught Apple's co-founders Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak the "phone phreaking" trick, they produced and sold the hardware to college students, and used the funds generated to launch their computer company.
From BBC ● Nov. 20, 2017
Modern phones are just computers sending data over strands of glass like every other computer, and while you can still totally hack them, it’s not really phreaking in the classical sense.
From The Verge ● Jul. 20, 2016
But he couldn’t get his mind off of blue boxes and phone phreaking.
From Salon ● Feb. 16, 2013
However, it was one of Bernay's disciples in Seattle who introduced phone phreaking to blind kids.
From Slate ● Oct. 7, 2011
Many phreakers saw it simply as another type of phreaking.
From Underground by Suelette Dreyfus
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
