reverse engineer

verb

reverse engineered; reverse engineering; reverse engineers

: to disassemble and examine or analyze in detail (a product or device) to discover the concepts involved in manufacture usually in order to produce something similar

reverse engineering noun

Examples of reverse engineer in a Sentence

They reverse engineered the software.

Recent Examples on the Web

Examples are automatically compiled from online sources to show current usage. Read More Opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

More than 150 Motorola ALPR cameras have exposed their video feeds and leaking data in recent months, according to security researcher Matt Brown, who first publicized the issues in a series of YouTube videos after buying an ALPR camera on eBay and reverse engineering it. —

Matt Burgess, WIRED, 7 Jan. 2025 The skills to reverse engineer potential attack scenarios. —

Davey Winder, Forbes, 27 Dec. 2024 This forces models to have to reverse engineer the ideal behavior from examples and leads to poor data efficiency and decision boundaries. —

John Werner, Forbes, 24 Dec. 2024 China has treated the war in Ukraine as an opportunity to gain operational and technological insights, reverse engineer U.S. weapons recovered from the battlefield, and find ways to circumvent Western economic sanctions. —

Kori Schake, Foreign Affairs, 8 Nov. 2024 See all Example Sentences for reverse engineer

Word History

First Known Use

1973, in the meaning defined above

Time Traveler

The first known use of reverse engineer was in 1973

See more words from the same year

Cite this Entry

Style

“Reverse engineer.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/reverse%20engineer. Accessed 18 Jan. 2025.

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