warez

"Warez" is a corruption of the word "wares." This happened in the late 80's/early 90's and has become a sub-culture in its own right. Thousands of people on IRC are "warezers." Many are also legitimate consumers who like to try before they buy. Many words have been corrupted in such a way such as "phreaking" but most of it is frowned upon by the general community (like AOL). Script kiddies are also frowned upon. Those seeking knowledge and are willing to not act stupid are welcome. The there is #oldwarez on EFnet were you can find old games for free that you would never find otherwise.

warez /weirz/ n.

Widely used in cracker subcultures to denote cracked version of commercial software, that is versions from which copy-protection has been stripped. Hackers recognize this term but don't use it themselves. See warez d00dz, courier, leech, elite.

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.