Small pieces of paper or cardboard left over after hole-punching or perforating, such as the tiny dots removed from computer punch cards or ballot cards.
Origin uncertain; possibly from an earlier word meaning scraps or waste, popularized in the 1960s with computer punch-card technology.
In the 2000 U.S. presidential election, 'hanging chads' from Florida ballots became a household term and actually changed history—showing how a manufacturing term became crucial to democracy itself.
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