# ad hoc

Pronunciation: say "ad-HOK" US /ˌæd ˈhɑk/, UK /ˌæd ˈhɒk/

## Adjective

1. Formed, arranged, or done for a particular purpose rather than for general use.
   - Simple: Made, set up, or done for one specific purpose.
   - _The board appointed an ad hoc committee to investigate the accounting errors and report back by June._
   - _Instead of buying general software, the lab wrote an ad hoc script to clean the data from that one survey._
2. Created or arranged on the spur of the moment, without advance planning.
   - Simple: Made up or done in the moment, without planning it first.
   - _Before any agency arrived, ad hoc crews of neighbors were already filling sandbags along the river._
   - _The encore was entirely ad hoc, a song the band had never rehearsed together._
5. Describing a hypothesis put forward solely to keep a theory from being falsified, without making any new predictions.
   - Simple: Used about an idea added only to save a theory from being proven wrong, when it predicts nothing new.
   - _Faced with the stray orbit, defenders of the model proposed an ad hoc hypothesis: an undetectable mass whose only job was to make the numbers fit._
   - _Reviewers dismissed the added hypothesis as ad hoc, since it explained away the failed result but predicted nothing testable._
6. Describing a network or connection that works without existing infrastructure such as routers or access points.
   - Simple: Used about a network in which devices link straight to each other without a router or similar equipment.
   - _After the earthquake knocked out the cell towers, the rescue teams' handheld radios formed an ad hoc network, linking directly to one another._
   - _In ad hoc mode, each sensor relays messages for its neighbors, so the system needs no access point._

## Adverb

3. For a particular purpose, rather than for general use.
   - Simple: For one specific purpose, not for general use.
   - _The tribunal was convened ad hoc to hear disputes arising from the border treaty._
   - _Rather than keep translators on staff, the agency hires them ad hoc for each case that needs one._
4. On the spur of the moment, without a plan made in advance.
   - Simple: Right at the moment, without planning it ahead of time.
   - _No agenda had been sent out, so the topics were chosen ad hoc as people arrived._
   - _When two starters fell ill during warm-ups, the coach reshuffled the lineup ad hoc._

## Origin

A learned borrowing from New Latin "ad hoc", meaning "to this" or "for this".

Source: DictionaryAI, https://dictionaryai.com/define/ad-hoc (written from Wiktionary data, CC BY-SA 4.0: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).