1. n. [common] 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 the old UUCP network and 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. [rare] To log in to a remote machine, esp. via rlogin or telnet. “I'll hop over to foovax to FTP that.”