kludge

or kluge

[ klooj ]

noun

, Computer Slang.

1. a software or hardware configuration that, while inelegant, inefficient, clumsy, or patched together, succeeds in solving a specific problem or performing a particular task.

Word History and Origins

Origin of kludge¹

First recorded in 1960–65; expressive coinage

Example Sentences

After TopicVelo disentangles this kludge of processes and organizes them by topic, it applies topic weights back onto the cells, to account for what percentage of each cell's transcriptional profile is involved in which activity.

From Science Daily

So I began to see if I could come up with a kludge that would give me what amounted to a standing desk.

From The Verge

Superman's super-strength is a great kludge to eliminate the need to depict all the miners and plumbers it would take to carve out and maintain his Fortress of Solitude.

From Salon

Moreover, there is a risk that even with trillions of dollars being spent, bureaucratic kludge makes the dollars less effective than they might be.

From New York Times

Albert Einstein first invented it in 1917 as a mathematical kludge to force his general relativity field equations to predict a static universe, as he and most scientists then believed the cosmos to be.

From Scientific American