vandal
Definitions
General English
- noun a person who takes pleasure in destroying property, especially public property.
Electronics
- An executable file, such as that created using ActiveX, or an applet, which is intended to steal passwords, provoke a denial-of-service attack, or cause some other harm. Since it does not seek out other programs to replicate itself, it is not a virus. A vandal may arrive, for instance, in the form of an email attachment, or via content downloaded when accessing a Web page.
Law
- noun somebody who destroys property, especially public property, wilfully
Origin & History of “vandal”
The
term vandal commemorates a Germanic
tribe, the Vandals, who sacked Rome in 455 ad, and thereby earned themselves a reputation as destroyers of civilization.
their name for themselves was *
Wandal-,
which etymologically means ‘wanderer’.
