Adjacent Words

nerd definitions

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WordNet (r) 3.0 (2005)

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

Merriam Webster's

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 Reference Dictionary

n. (also nurd) esp. US sl. a foolish, feeble, or uninteresting person. Derivatives: nerdy adj. Etymology: 20th c.: orig. uncert.

Collin's Cobuild Dictionary

(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]