1. To go through multiple levels of indirection, as in traversing a linked list or graph structure. Used especially by programmers in C, where explicit pointers are a very common data type. See dangling pointer and snap. 2. (Cambridge) "pointer chase" or "pointer hunt": The process of going through a core dump, interactively or on a large piece of paper printed with hexrunes, following dynamic data-structures. Used only in debugging. [Jargon File] (1995-05-11)