Sabotage was the intentional destruction or damaging of a device to slow one's opponent. The etymology of the word sabotage originated from the French sabot. According to Valeris, the term was derived from the practice of workers throwing their wooden shoes into machinery. (Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country)
This is a false etymology. According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, "In French, and at first in English, the sense of "deliberately and maliciously destroying property" originally was in reference to labor disputes, but the oft-repeated story (as old as the record of the word in English) that the modern meaning derives from strikers' supposed tactic of throwing shoes into machinery is not supported by the etymology. Likely it was not meant as a literal image; the word was used in French in a variety of "bungling" senses, such as "to play a piece of music badly." This, too, was the explanation given in some early usages." [1]
An individual who sabotaged was known as a saboteur. (TOS: "Errand of Mercy"; TAS: "More Tribbles, More Troubles"; TNG: "The Most Toys")
Lieutenant Colonel Fellini accused James T. Kirk of the crimes of burglary, sabotage, espionage, and unauthorized entry in 1969. (TOS: "Tomorrow is Yesterday")
In 2154, when Captain Jonathan Archer reverse-imprinted on a group of Xindi-Insectoid eggs, he felt that Lieutenant Malcolm Reed's order to destroy a Xindi-Insectoid starship might have been a deliberate attempt at sabotaging Enterprise NX-01's mission to pursue means to stop the Xindi's planned destruction of Earth. (ENT: "Hatchery")
That same year, faced with Vulcan objections to his actions aboard the Seleya, Archer suggested that the ship's crew might still be alive if the Vulcans had been more helpful and that they had done everything they could to sabotage his mission to stop a Xindi attack on Earth; that he had gotten more help from the Andorians than he ever had from the Vulcan High Command. (ENT: "Home")
That same year Klingon Augments lead by Marab boarded and sabotaged the Enterprise NX-01 by changing the engineering subroutines to shut down the antimatter flow regulators, causing an overload in the ship's intermix chamber, and threating a warp core breach if Enterprise dropped to impulse. Commander Charles Tucker III did a risky ship to ship transfer from Columbia and repaired the warp core so they could continue their pursuit and catch the Klingon ship that kidnapped Phlox. (ENT: "Affliction", "Divergence")
In 2155 in the mirror universe, Commander T'Pol lured Commander Charles Tucker III with the promise of a sexual encounter and then used a mind meld to implant a telepathic compulsion in him to sabotage the ISS Enterprise's power systems and then altered his memory. (ENT: "In a Mirror, Darkly")
In 2259 of the alternate reality, Admiral Alexander Marcus had the USS Enterprise's warp core sabotaged during its mission to fire 72 advanced long-range torpedoes at the traitor John Harrison's location on Qo'noS. Marcus intended to strand the Enterprise on the Federation-Klingon border, where a Klingon patrol investigating the attack would come across the ship, thereby giving Marcus a reason for the Federation and Klingon Empire to go to war. Later, Montgomery Scott sneaked onto the USS Vengeance and sabotaged it to stop Marcus from attacking the Enterprise. (Star Trek Into Darkness)
In 2268, the USS Enterprise was ordered to Deep Space Station K-7 based on Undersecretary in Charge of Agricultural Affairs Nilz Baris' concerns that the Klingons might attempt to sabotage a shipment of a quadrotriticale being held there. (TOS: "The Trouble with Tribbles") Around the same time, the USS Defiant arrived from the future, carrying with it the Klingon agent Arne Darvin. When Darvin was finally caught by Lieutenant Commander Worf, Worf suggested that Darvin might have sabotaged the Enterprise, but Darvin replied that he had done "nothing so mundane." (DS9: "Trials and Tribble-ations")
Montgomery Scott sabotaged the USS Excelsior in 2285 by removing chips from her main transwarp computer. This prevented the Excelsior from pursuing the stolen USS Enterprise. (Star Trek III: The Search for Spock)
In 2364, when the USS Enterprise-D experienced a series of malfunctions, the crew suspected sabotage by visiting Antican and Selay delegates. In fact, the malfunctions were actually caused by a non-corporeal lifeform which had accidentally entered the ship's systems. (TNG: "Lonely Among Us")
That same year, when a laser drill killed the terraformer Arthur Malencon, sabotage was suspected as a possible cause, though it was actually the work of the microbrain. (TNG: "Home Soil")
Also that same year, following the destruction of the USS Horatio, Captain Jean-Luc Picard strongly suspected sabotage, based on a conversation he had with the ship's commanding officer, Walker Keel. His suspicion was confirmed by an investigation by Lieutenant Commander Data, as well as a visit to Starfleet Headquarters that revealed the existence of the parasitic beings. (TNG: "Conspiracy")
In 2366, the sabotage of an Angosian tracking station by Roga Danar enabled him to escape from their Lunar V penal colony. (TNG: "The Hunted")
The Klingon exobiologist J'Dan was accused of sabotaging the dilithium chamber of the Enterprise-D in 2367, resulting in an explosion. It was later discovered that it was rather an accident and not an act of sabotage. (TNG: "The Drumhead")
While the Cardassians were withdrawing from Bajor after the occupation's end in 2369, Cardassians on board Terok Nor sabotaged and booby trapped the station, as part of standard military procedure when abandoning an outpost. (DS9: "Emissary")
In 2369, Commander Sisko suggested sabotage when the aphasia device infected the whole station. Kira Nerys told him that because of the diboridium core it was Cardassian sabotage. (DS9: "Babel")
In 2371, when Doctor Julian Bashir fell into a coma caused by a Lethean, he found himself trapped in his mind in a version of Deep Space 9. In his mind, the Lethean sabotaged Deep Space 9 and each time he did so, the damage caused was actually damage to Bashir's mind. (DS9: "Distant Voices")
That same year, under orders from Admiral Toddman, Michael Eddington sabotaged the USS Defiant's cloaking device's tetryon compositor. (DS9: "The Die is Cast") Eddington later installed a cascading virus aboard the Defiant in preparation for his defection to the Maquis, thereby sabotaging the vessel during its pursuit of him in late 2372. (DS9: "For the Uniform")
In late 2371, a Changeling sabotaged the USS Defiant in order to ignite a war between the Federation and the Tzenkethi. (DS9: "The Adversary")
In order to make it appear that the Founders were a greater threat to Earth that they were, Admiral Leyton had Red Squad sabotage the global power grid in 2372, plunging Earth into a blackout. (DS9: "Homefront", "Paradise Lost")
In 2373, when a Pah-wraith took possession of Keiko O'Brien's body, she forced Miles O'Brien to make a number of modifications to the systems of Deep Space 9 that were ultimately intended to kill the Prophets. Sabotage was first suspected by Lieutenant Commander Jadzia Dax when she discovered certain of the modifications by running a level 3 diagnostic. (DS9: "The Assignment")
That same year, a Changeling posing as Doctor Julian Bashir sabotaged the graviton emitters on Deep Space 9 to prevent an attempt to seal the Bajoran wormhole. (DS9: "In Purgatory's Shadow") Following this, he engaged in a number of other acts of sabotage until he was finally killed. (DS9: "By Inferno's Light")
Also that year, when Nyrians took control of USS Voyager, Commander Chakotay and crewman Gennaro were the only two remaining crewmembers active on the ship, The Doctor not being activated. Chakotay ordered Gennaro to sabotage everything he could get his hands on and then proceeded to disable the ship's lateral EPS relays himself before rescuing The Doctor. (VOY: "Displaced")
In Lieutenant Commander Tuvok's Insurrection Alpha holonovel, the holographic Commander Chakotay began to suspect the presence of a saboteur on Voyager when the ship's warp engines had been offline for two days and he and Seska continued to experience issues repairing them. (VOY: "Worst Case Scenario")
During the Battle of Cardassia in late 2375, the civilians on Cardassia Prime sabotaged the planet's communications, transportation, and power systems, causing a planet-wide blackout. This disabled the Female Changeling's ability to command the Dominion ships during the battle. The disarray caused by this allowed the allies to defeat the Dominion and Breen fleets and force them to retreat. It also led to the destruction of Lakarian City by Jem'Hadar forces and further threats to destroy Cardassian cities if the sabotage continued, which were carried out when the Female Changeling ordered the extermination of the Cardassians. (DS9: "What You Leave Behind")
In 2376, Seven of Nine believed that numerous transmissions by the Qomar to Voyager were an attempt to sabotage it by overloading the system with "millions of teraquads of irrelevant data," but Captain Kathryn Janeway explained that it was actually fan mail being sent to The Doctor. (VOY: "Virtuoso")
When Voyager was split into 37 separate timeframes, Commander Chakotay encountered a version of Captain Kathryn Janeway in a timeframe prior to the ship's having become lost in the Delta Quadrant. Though he tried to tell her that he believed he had been seven years into the ship's past, she suspected instead that he learned Voyager had been assigned to capture him and came on-board to sabotage the ship. (VOY: "Shattered")
In 2381, Sub-commander Vrek accused Malok of sabotaging his ship in order to assassinate him shortly before the ship was stolen by Nova One. Vrek's accusation was half correct; Nick Locarno had manipulated Malok into disabling the ship's systems as Nova One approached, but rather than assassinate Vrek, the mutineers led by Malok stranded him on Sherbal V. (LD: "I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee", "The Inner Fight")
Around the same time, two Humans mistakenly displayed at Narj's Miraculous Menagerarium saw how profitable they were, and also learned that the neighboring moopsy was a ravenous and highly dangerous predator known to "drink" bones. They thus schemed to murder proprietor Narj to take control of the menagerie; to do this, they hacked the door to the moopsy's enclosure and released it onto the station. Narj was devoured by the moopsy, but the USS Cerritos away team assigned to retrieve them discovered their role in the moopsy's escape and left them in their enclosure. (LD: "I Have No Bones Yet I Must Flee")
In 3191, in the Federation Watch List for Moll, sabotage was listed with other crimes that she had committed during her career as a professional criminal. (DIS: "Mirrors")