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ENGLISH · A WORD WITH POSSIBILITIES

nerd.

A person who is intellectual but generally introverted.

4 characters1 syllables approx.English language

Meaning & usage

noun/nɜːd/Australia, Received-Pronunciation/nɝd/US/neɹd/Scotland/nøːd/New-Zealand
  1. A person who is intellectual but generally introverted.

    derogatory · slang · sometimes
    The bullies used to call him a nerd at school.
  2. One who has an intense, obsessive interest in something.

    derogatory · informal · sometimes
    a computer nerd
    a comic-book nerd
  3. A member of a subculture revolving around intellectualism, technology, video games, fantasy and science fiction, comic books and assorted media.

    derogatory · informal · sometimes
  4. One who is stupid and socially inept or unattractive; a social outcast.

    dated · derogatory · informal · sometimes
Where this word comes from

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.

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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.

Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.