hose 1. vt. To make non-functional or greatly degraded in
performance. "That big ray-tracing program really hoses the
system." See {hosed}. 2. n. A narrow channel through which
data flows under pressure. Generally denotes data paths that
represent performance bottlenecks. 3. n. Cabling, especially thick
Ethernet cable. This is sometimes called `bit hose' or
`hosery' (play on `hosiery') or `etherhose'. See also
{washing machine}.