nerd
Plural: nerds
Noun
- An unstylish, socially awkward, or overly intellectual person.
- an insignificant student who is ridiculed as being affected or boringly studious
- an intelligent but single-minded expert in a particular technical field or profession
- A person who is intellectual but generally introverted.
- One who has an intense, obsessive interest in something.
- A member of a subculture revolving around intellectualism, technology, video games, fantasy and science fiction, comic books and assorted media.
- One who is stupid and socially inept or unattractive; a social outcast.
Examples
- a comic-book nerd
- a computer nerd
- He was a proud Words With Friends nerd, meticulously tracking win-loss ratios.
- The bullies used to call him a nerd at school.
Origin / Etymology
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.
Scrabble Score: 5
nerd: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordnerd: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
nerd: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary
Words With Friends Score: 6
nerd: valid Words With Friends Word