phreak
/fɹiːk/
phreak noun: a person who engages in phone phreaking.
Noun
phreak (plural phreaks)
- A person who engages in phone phreaking.
- Phreaks can max-out 911 systems just by siccing a bunch of computer-modems on them in tandem, dialling them over and over until they clog.1992, Bruce Sterling, The Hacker Crackdown […] , Bantam Books, →ISBN
- Joybubbles (the legal name of the former Joe Engressia since 1991), a blind genius with perfect pitch who accidentally found he could make free phone calls by whistling tones and went on to play a pivotal role in the 1970s subculture of “phone phreaks,” died on Aug. 8 in Minneapolis.2007 August 20, Douglas Martin, “Joybubbles, 58, Peter Pan of Phone Hackers, Dies”, in The New York Times, archived from the original on 12 Feb 2022
Verb
phreak (third-person singular simple present phreaks, present participle phreaking, simple past and past participle phreaked)
- To engage in phone phreaking.
Forms of phreak
| Noun | |
|---|---|
| plural | phreaks |
| Verb | |
| third-person singular present | phreaks |
| present participle | phreaking |
| past participle | phreaked |
| past | phreaked |
Origin of phreak
Blend of phone + freak.
Words formed from phreak
Words that rhyme with phreak
48 more rhymesFewer rhymes
- leak
- seek
- bespeak
- pique
- tweak
- reek
- sleek
- geek
- peek
- squeak
- week
- wreak
- boutique
- clique
- creek
- forspeak
- gleek
- unique
- bleak
- cacique
- creak
- critique
- deke
- eek
- eke
- fleak
- on fleek
- respeak
- Tajik
- teak
- technique
- tongue-in-chic
- chic
- cleek
- desqueak
- leek
- malik
- meek
- midweek
- misspeak
- physique
- pratique
- shriek
- speke
- streek
- Zeke
- -speak
- Adam's Peak
Questions about phreak
- What does phreak mean?
- Phreak means a person who engages in phone phreaking.
- What part of speech is phreak?
- Phreak can be a noun or a verb.
- How do you pronounce phreak?
- Phreak is pronounced /fɹiːk/.
- What is the plural of phreak?
- The plural of phreak is phreaks.
Words near phreak in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: phreak (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: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Vealhurl-freak.wav.
Cite this entry: “phreak.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/phreak. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.