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Bagbiter

/bag'bi:t-*r/

n. 1. Something, such as a program or a computer, that fails to work, or works in a remarkably clumsy manner. "This text editor won't let me make a file with a line longer than 80 characters! What a bagbiter!"

2. A person who has caused you some trouble, inadvertently or otherwise, typically by failing to program the computer properly. Synonyms: loser, cretin, chomper.

3. adj. 'bagbiting' Having the quality of a bagbiter. "This bagbiting system won't let me compute the factorial of a negative number."

Compare losing, cretinous, bletcherous, 'barfucious' (under barfulous) and 'chomping' (under chomp).

4. 'bite the bag' vi. To fail in some manner.

"The computer keeps crashing every 5 minutes."

"Yes, the disk controller is really biting the bag."

The original loading of these terms was almost undoubtedly obscene, possibly referring to the scrotum, but in their current usage they have become almost completely sanitized.

A program called Lexiphage on the old MIT AI PDP-10 would draw on a selected victim's bitmapped terminal the words "THE BAG" in ornate letters, and then a pair of jaws biting pieces of it off. This is the first and to date only known example of a program *intended* to be a bagbiter.