kludge

1. /kluhj/ n. Incorrect (though regrettably common) spelling of {kluge} (US). These two words have been confused in American usage since the early 1960s, and widely confounded in Great Britain since the end of World War II.
2. [TMRC] A {crock} that works. (A long-ago Datamation article by Jackson Granholme similarly said: "An ill-assorted collection of poorly matching parts, forming a distressing whole.")
3. v. To use a kludge to get around a problem. "I've kludged around it for now, but I'll fix it up properly later."

   This word appears to have derived from Scots kludge or kludgie for a common toilet, via British military slang. It apparently became confused with U.S. {kluge} during or after World War II; some Britons from that era use both words in definably different ways, but {kluge} is now uncommon in Great Britain. `Kludge' in Commonwealth hackish differs in meaning from `kluge' in that it lacks the positive senses; a kludge is something no Commonwealth hacker wants to be associated too closely with. Also, `kludge' is more widely known in British mainstream slang than `kluge' is in the U.S.

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