hop 1. n. One file transmission in a series required to get a file from point A to point B on a store-and-forward network. On such networks (including UUCPNET and FidoNet), an important inter-machine metric is the number of hops in the shortest path between them, which can be more significant than their geographical separation. See bang path. 2. v. To log in to a remote machine, esp. via rlogin or telnet. "I'll hop over to foovax to FTP that."