NERD DEFINITIONS - 8 definitions found
nerd n 1: an insignificant student who is ridiculed as being affected or boringly studious [syn: swot, grind, nerd, wonk, dweeb] 2: an intelligent but single-minded expert in a particular technical field or profession nerd rend dern nerd 1951, U.S. student slang, probably an alteration of 1940s slang nert "stupid or crazy person," itself an alteration of nut. Nerdy is from 1978. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition (2003) nerd noun Etymology: perhaps from nerd, a creature in the children's book If I Ran the Zoo (1950) by Dr. Seuss (Theodor Geisel) Date: 1951 an unstylish, unattractive, or socially inept person; especially one slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits <computer nerds> • nerdiness noun • nerdish adjective • nerdy adjective Oxford English Reference Dictionary
Collins COBUILD Advanced Learner\'s English Dictionary nerd (nerds) If you say that someone is a nerd, you mean that they are stupid or ridiculous, especially because they wear unfashionable clothes or show too much interest in computers or science. (INFORMAL, OFFENSIVE) Mark claimed he was made to look a nerd. ...the notion that users of the Internet are all sad computer nerds. N-COUNT [disapproval] English Explanatory Dictionary nerd n. (also nurd) esp. US sl. a foolish, feeble, or uninteresting person. øønerdy adj. [20th c.: orig. uncert.] Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) nerd n. 1. [mainstream slang] Pejorative applied to anyone with an above-average IQ and few gifts at small talk and ordinary social rituals. 2. [jargon] Term of praise applied (in conscious ironic reference to sense 1) to someone who knows what's really important and interesting and doesn't care to be distracted by trivial chatter and silly status games. Compare geek. The word itself appears to derive from the lines "And then, just to show them, I'll sail to Ka-Troo / And Bring Back an It-Kutch, a Preep and a Proo, / A Nerkle, a Nerd, and a Seersucker, too!" in the Dr. Seuss book "If I Ran the Zoo" (1950). (The spellings `nurd' and `gnurd' also used to be current at MIT, where `nurd' is reported from as far back as 1957.) How it developed its mainstream meaning is unclear, but sense 1 seems to have entered mass culture in the early 1970s (there are reports that in the mid-1960s it meant roughly "annoying misfit" without the connotation of intelligence). An IEEE Spectrum article (4/95, page 16) once derived `nerd' in its variant form `knurd' from the word `drunk' backwards, but this bears all the hallmarks of a bogus folk etymology. Hackers developed sense 2 in self-defense perhaps ten years later, and some actually wear "Nerd Pride" buttons, only half as a joke. At MIT one can find not only buttons but (what else?) pocket protectors bearing the slogan and the MIT seal. |
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