nerd

A person who is intellectual but generally introverted.

Noun

  1. A person who is intellectual but generally introverted.
    • The bullies used to call him a nerd at school.
    • 1953 Advertisement for "Businessman's Lunch", a play by Michael Quinn, in Patricia Brown, Gloria Mundi They particularly enjoy making fun of one of their fellows who is not present, whom they consider a hopeless nerd –...
    • I once found myself listening to a gay man who was saying wistfully, "I wish there was someplace you could go, maybe a club, where only masculine men would be allowed in." […] Ever tactful, I did not point out to him...
  2. One who has an intense, obsessive interest in something.
    • a computer nerd
    • a comic-book nerd

    Synonyms: geek dag propeller head

  3. A member of a subculture revolving around intellectualism, technology, video games, fantasy and science fiction, comic books and assorted media. [from 1980s]
  4. One who is stupid and socially inept or unattractive; a social outcast. [from 1970s until early 1990s]
    • ALICE: Prithee , what might a nerd be ? GLORIA: A nerd is an idiot or other person absurd. - [1976, Frank Shiras, Go Ask Alice, Dramatic Publishing, →ISBN, page 25:
    • To much of the world, we in America are nerds. We don't understand the world we live in. - 1979, World Vision:
    • "You're a nerd, Jake, a nerd. You're stupid. You're clumsy. You're dirt, Jake. You're nothing." - 1988, Dean Marney, The Trouble with Jake's Double, Dean Marney, →ISBN, page 98:

Origin

Unknown. Attested since 1951 as US student slang. * Perhaps an alteration of nerts (“nuts", "crazy”); see references below. * The word, capitalized, appeared in 1950 in Dr. Seuss’s If I Ran the Zoo as the name of an imaginary animal: *: And then, just to show them, I’ll sail to Katroo / And bring back an It-Kutch, a Preep and a Proo, / A Nerkle, a Nerd and a Seersucker too! * Possibly a rebracketing of inert as a nert, as in he's inert = he's a nerd, in reference to one's lack of competence or athletic ability. * Various unlikely folk etymologies and less likely backronymic speculations also exist.

Forms

nerds knurd nurd

Derived

arachnerd blerd cybernerd enginerd entreprenerd feminerd internerd millionerd neek nerdboy nerdbrain nerd chic nerdcore nerderati nerdery nerdette nerdface nerdfest Nerdfighter nerdgasm nerd glasses nerdhood Nerdic nerdification