Dongle - Computer Term Of The Day

I remember the first piece of software I bought that required a dongle - My daughter came home from school and asked me “what’s new?” I looked at her and said I just got a new dongle.

I wish I would have had been video taping her because her expression was hilarious - She thought I said something dirty and told me I was disgusting! We still laugh about it to this day.

What is a dongle?

A dongle is: . . . . .

don·gle (dôngl, dng-)
n.
A hardware device that serves as copy protection for certain software by rendering the software inoperable when the device is not plugged into a printer port.
[Probably arbitrary coinage.]

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2003. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.

There you have it - Tell everybody about your new dongle!