Downtime

Definition

When a website, app, or service stops working, causing customers to panic and post angry tweets while support teams pretend it's 'scheduled maintenance.'

Example Usage

We experienced a 4-hour downtime that definitely wasn't related to our sloppy deployment procedure, definitely.

Source: IT terminology

Related Terms

Beginner

projection

That thing sticking out of your surface that either ruins your aerodynamics or gives you character—depending on your attitude. In technical contexts, it's anything that juts out and probably shouldn't.

💻 Tech / IT

Beginner

administrator

The person with elevated privileges and system access who can fix things when they break and break things when they're fixing them. In IT, administrators are responsible for keeping networks, servers, and databases running, which means they're perpetually blamed when anything goes wrong. They possess the sacred power to reset your password and the burden of being everyone's first call during outages.

💻 Tech / IT

Intermediate

AI Art

Images generated by machine learning models trained on vast datasets to understand composition patterns, then reverse-engineered via text prompts to create new works. Basically: computers making art from plagiarized data, which courts are still fighting about.

💻 Tech / IT

Intermediate

pornacopia

A portmanteau of 'porn' and 'cornucopia' describing any location or device containing an overwhelming abundance of adult content. Think of it as the horn of plenty, but significantly NSFW. Usually refers to that one friend's hard drive that everyone knows about but nobody mentions at family gatherings.

💻 Tech / IT

Intermediate

reprogram

To fundamentally alter how software behaves by rewriting its code, or in human terms, to completely change someone's habits and behaviors through some combination of therapy, coercion, or cult tactics. In government budgeting, it's the art of redirecting money from one program to another while pretending this was the plan all along. Dystopian fiction loves this word, and for good reason.

💻 Tech / IT

Intermediate

Hewlett's Law

The tech industry pattern where innovative giants eventually lose their competitive edge and resort to manufacturing printers to sustain revenue—the corporate equivalent of a once-thriving band selling NFTs to stay relevant.

💻 Tech / IT

Translate This Term

See “Downtime” in Corporate Speak, Gen-Z Slang, Pirate Speak, and more.

Try the Translator

Share This Term

Post on X Share on Facebook Share on LinkedIn

Discover a Term

Advanced

HUMINT

Human Intelligence — information gathered from human sources rather than technology. It is old-school spying: actual p...