nerd

Meaning

Noun

• A person who is intellectual but generally introverted.
• One who has an intense, obsessive interest in something.
• An unattractive, socially awkward, annoying, undesirable, and/or boring, person; a dork.
• A member of a subculture revolving around video games, fantasy and science fiction, comic books and assorted media.

Origin

• Unknown. Attested since 1951 as US student slang.
• Perhaps an alteration of nerts; 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!
• Various unlikely folk etymologies and less likely backronymic speculations also exist.