Privs

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Special rights or permissions granted to a user or account, such as the ability to change system settings or view restricted files
2. Informal shorthand for the access rights a person or account holds within a computer system or organization
3. Elevated permissions that allow someone to perform actions or see content beyond what ordinary users are allowed to do

Etymology: "Privs" is the plural of "priv", a clipped form of "privilege" that became common in computing and online slang. Its plural is simply what you get when a shortened word is pluralized the way regular nouns are, so the real history lies in the word it stands for. The clipping produces a different sense from its source: "priv" usually refers to privileges or permissions, such as the access rights a user or program holds on a system. Those are the things "privs" refers to when someone says a user has the right privs to edit a file, or a process was run without enough privs.