May 15, 2003

defenestration

n.

[mythically from a traditional Bohemian assassination method, via SF fandom]

1. Proper karmic retribution for an incorrigible punster. Oh, ghod, that was awful! Quick! Defenestrate him!

2. The act of completely removing Micro$oft Windows from a PC in favor of a better OS (typically Linux).

3. The act of discarding something under the assumption that it will improve matters. I don't have any disk space left. Well, why don't you defenestrate that 100 megs worth of old core dumps?

4. Under a GUI, the act of dragging something out of a window (onto the screen). Next, defenestrate the MugWump icon.

5. [obs.] The act of exiting a window system in order to get better response time from a full-screen program. This comes from the dictionary meaning of defenestrate, which is to throw something out a window.

Posted by Jargon File at May 15, 2003 10:51 AM

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