technical tap

noun

technical tap

noun

Etymology The phrase became popular in the Second Industrial Revolution, when sometimes vacuum tubes or soldered connections would become loose.

1

A tap or a slap on a device in a way to either make it work correctly again, or break it completely. For example, hitting a TV to get its reception back, or hitting a jukebox back to life.

Synonyms
percussive maintenance

Entry derived from the Wiktionary, under licence CC BY-SA 4.0 — list of authors.