The DICT Development Group

  hacker
   n.
  
      [originally, someone who makes furniture with an axe]
  
      1. A person who enjoys exploring the details of programmable systems and
      how to stretch their capabilities, as opposed to most users, who prefer to
      learn only the minimum necessary. RFC1392, the Internet Users' Glossary,
      usefully amplifies this as: A person who delights in having an intimate
      understanding of the internal workings of a system, computers and computer
      networks in particular.
  
      2. One who programs enthusiastically (even obsessively) or who enjoys
      programming rather than just theorizing about programming.
  
      3. A person capable of appreciating hack value.
  
      4. A person who is good at programming quickly.
  
      5. An expert at a particular program, or one who frequently does work using
      it or on it; as in ?a Unix hacker?. (Definitions 1 through 5 are
      correlated, and people who fit them congregate.)
  
      6. An expert or enthusiast of any kind. One might be an astronomy hacker,
      for example.
  
      7. One who enjoys the intellectual challenge of creatively overcoming or
      circumventing limitations.
  
      8. [deprecated] A malicious meddler who tries to discover sensitive
      information by poking around. Hence password hacker, network hacker. The
      correct term for this sense is cracker.
  
      The term ?hacker? also tends to connote membership in the global community
      defined by the net (see the network. For discussion of some of the basics
      of this culture, see the How To Become A Hacker FAQ. It also implies that
      the person described is seen to subscribe to some version of the hacker
      ethic (see hacker ethic).
  
      It is better to be described as a hacker by others than to describe oneself
      that way. Hackers consider themselves something of an elite (a meritocracy
      based on ability), though one to which new members are gladly welcome.
      There is thus a certain ego satisfaction to be had in identifying yourself
      as a hacker (but if you claim to be one and are not, you'll quickly be
      labeled bogus). See also geek, wannabee.
  
      This term seems to have been first adopted as a badge in the 1960s by the
      hacker culture surrounding TMRC and the MIT AI Lab. We have a report that
      it was used in a sense close to this entry's by teenage radio hams and
      electronics tinkerers in the mid-1950s.