|
Nerd - Dictionary Definition and Overview |
|
Nerd : (noun)
1: an insignificant student who is ridiculed as being affected
or studying excessively [syn: swot, grind, wonk, dweeb]
Based on WordNet 2.0
|
|
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.
Based on WordNet (r) 2.0 (August 2003)
|
|
|
|
|
