Nerd

2 definitions found

From WordNet (r) 2.0 [wn]:

  nerd
       n : an insignificant student who is ridiculed as being affected
           or studying excessively [syn: {swot}, {grind}, {wonk}, {dweeb}]

From Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) [jargon]:



  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.