Exploit

//ˈɛksplɔɪt// noun, verb

noun, verb ·Common ·High school level

Definitions

Noun
  1. 1
    A heroic or extraordinary deed.

    "Hieronimo, it greatly pleaſeth vs, / That in our victorie thou haue a ſhare, / By vertue of thy vvorthy Sonnes exployt."

  2. 2
    a notable achievement wordnet
  3. 3
    An achievement.

    "The first trek to the summit of Mount Everest was a stunning exploit."

  4. 4
    A program or technique that takes advantage of a vulnerability in other software.

    "One of the more publicized cases that involved a zero-day exploit concerned the compromise of some U.S. military web servers. The attack involved exploiting a buffer overflow vulnerability in a core Windows component; […]"

  5. 5
    An action or technique that takes advantage of the conditions of a video game to gain an advantage, or to disadvantage others. Internet, broadly
Verb
  1. 1
    To use (something) to someone's advantage, such as one's own benefit or a society's benefit. transitive

    "to exploit natural resources in a sustainable way"

  2. 2
    use or manipulate to one's advantage wordnet
  3. 3
    To make unfair use of someone else's labor, person, or property to one's own advantage. transitive

    "Materialistic people who exploit others will come to a bad end."

  4. 4
    draw from; make good use of wordnet
  5. 5
    work excessively hard wordnet

Synonyms

All synonyms
deedtake advantage ofabuseaccomplished factaccomplishmentachievement

Example

More examples

"Employers sometimes exploit their workers."

Etymology

From Old French esploit (noun), esploitier (verb).

Related phrases

anti-exploit

More for "exploit"

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Data sourced from Wiktionary, WordNet, CMU, and other open linguistic databases. Updated March 2026.