hack it

Proposed by a contributor, not yet supported by evidence.

Meaning · English

to manage or cope with something

Nghĩa · Tiếng Việt

xử lý hoặc đối phó với điều gì đó

Machine-translated — suggest a fix

Literally: cut something with rough blows
Where it’s used: Used Widespread English

Examples

I was being bossy last night just couldn't hack it.
Come on, I'm a big boy now, I can hack it.’

British National Corpus sentence via the MAGPIE corpus (CC BY 4.0, retrieved 2026-07-30)

Sources & notes

Listed in Wiktionary’s “English idioms” category (retrieved 2026-07-29); definition pending editorial review. Definition drafted by AI (@cf/meta/llama-3.3-70b-instruct-fp8-fast) and auto-approved by rule on 2026-07-31; pending editor spot-check.

Common questions

What does “hack it” mean?

to manage or cope with something Literally: cut something with rough blows

Is “hack it” formal or informal?

No register label has been reviewed yet — treat it as neutral and check the usage notes above.