gweep
/ɡwiːp/
gweep verb: to work on a minicomputer late at night.
Verb
gweep (third-person singular simple present gweeps, present participle gweeping, simple past and past participle gweeped)
- To work on a minicomputer late at night.
Noun
gweep (plural gweeps)
- A nighttime hacker on early minicomputers.
Forms of gweep
| Verb | |
|---|---|
| third-person singular present | gweeps |
| present participle | gweeping |
| past participle | gweeped |
| past | gweeped |
| Noun | |
| plural | gweeps |
Origin of gweep
Purportedly coined by hackers at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) in 1977 and still in use through 1991. However, this entry did not appear in the Jargon File until the 1993 version 3.0.0, an edition which prompted controversy about Eric Raymond's stewardship and attention to proper attestation. The reliability of this particular addition is unclear; it was likely in use at WPI in 1991 as reported, but may have been specific to a much smaller subcommunity, particularly as it escaped mention in earlier editions of the Jargon File, which did capture other slang from WPI.
Words that rhyme with gweep
Questions about gweep
- What does gweep mean?
- Gweep means to work on a minicomputer late at night.
- What part of speech is gweep?
- Gweep can be a verb or a noun.
- How do you pronounce gweep?
- Gweep is pronounced /ɡwiːp/.
- What is the past tense of gweep?
- The past tense of gweep is gweeped.
Words near gweep in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: gweep (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.
Last updated:
Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: En-au-gweep.ogg.
Cite this entry: “gweep.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/gweep. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.