the federal department in the United States that sets and maintains foreign policies
"the Department of State was created in 1789"
an operating system that is on a disk
"The old computer booted up from a floppy dos after years of being stored in the attic."
Initialism of date of service.
"The new dos was tasked with developing a rigorous curriculum to better prepare students for university entrance exams."
plural of do
plural of do
A denial-of-service attack.
Director of Studies; someone in charge of the academic side of a school including training teachers and deciding course materials.
In plain English: A dos is a school leader who focuses on teaching, teacher development, and what's taught in classes.
"The new dos implemented a revised curriculum focused on student engagement."
Usage: This noun, borrowed from Spanish, refers specifically to the director of studies at a language school or similar institution. Use it when discussing the person responsible for curriculum development and teacher training within that context.
To commit a denial-of-service attack against.
"The hacker managed to dos the company's website, causing it to crash during the critical product launch."
In plain English: To DOS is to overwhelm an online service with traffic, making it unavailable to others.
"Hackers threatened to dos several government websites if their demands weren't met."
Usage: Dos (verb) refers specifically to launching a denial-of-service (DoS) attack, often involving overwhelming a server with traffic to disrupt its normal function. It's typically used in technical contexts discussing cybersecurity and network attacks-e.g., "Hackers dosed the website with requests."
Acronym of Disk Operating System, a family of disk-based operating systems.
"The legacy software company still maintains compatibility with older versions of DOS to support its vintage hardware line."
The term "dos" is an abbreviation derived from the phrase "denial of service." It entered common usage as a shorthand to describe cyberattacks that overwhelm computer systems and prevent legitimate users from accessing them.