Noun

1. Metal implements.
2. Firearm.
3. Electronic equipment.
4. The part of a computer that is fixed and cannot be altered without replacement or physical modification; motherboard, expansion cards, etc. Compare software.
   • 1952: Hardware is the generally accepted colloquism for anything inside a computer other than an engineer. — Binary Arithmetic, R.L. Michaelson, in The Incorporated Statistician, vol. 3, no. 1 (Feb. 1952), pp 35-40.
5. Fixtures, equipment, tools and devices used for general purpose construction and repair of a structure or object . Also such equipment as sold as stock by a store of the same name, e.g. hardware store.

   He needed a hammer, nails, screws, nuts, bolts and other assorted hardware, so he went to the hardware store.