Etymology

Noun

1. Food, especially meat and potatoes, chopped and mixed together.
   • 1633: Samuel Pepys, Diary

     I had for them, after oysters, at first course, a hash of rabbits, a lamb, and a rare chine of beef.

2. A confused mess.
   • 1847: Charlotte Yonge, Scenes and Characters

     Oh! no, not Naylor's--the girls have made a hash there, as they do everything else; but we will settle her before they come out again.

3. The # symbol (octothorpe, pound).
4. The key generated by a hash function.
5. Abbreviation for hashish, a drug derived from the cannabis plant.

Adjective

1. Hashed, chopped into small pieces
   • 1855: William Makepeace Thackeray, The Newcomes

     The Colonel, himself, was great at making hash mutton, hot-pot, curry, and pillau.

2. Of or relating to the process of hashing or hash coding

Verb

1. To chop into small pieces, to make into a hash.
   • 1749: Henry Fielding, The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling

     In like manner, we shall represent human nature at first to the keen appetite of our reader, in that more plain and simple manner in which it is found in the country, and shall hereafter hash and ragoo it with all the high French and Italian seasoning of affectation and vice which courts and cities afford.

2. To make a quick, rough version; as in - hash up some plans = make some quick, rough plans.
3. To transform according to a hash function.