What is a Dongle?

In general terms, a dongle is a small piece of hardware that connects to a computer (typically via the USB port) in order to provide one of a variety of functions. The original use of the dongle was to authenticate a piece of software as a high-end form of security to prevent the unauthorised copying of software, although the term has now been broadened to include other small, plug-in devices, such as broadband wireless adaptors or USB flash drives.

The fairly strange word 'dongle' seems to have been chosen more or less at random as a placeholder to describe the device when it was first used, and over time it has been adopted as the actual name.