nerd

nerd also nurd  (nûrd)

n. Slang

1. A foolish, inept, or unattractive person.

2. A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept.

---

[Perhaps after Nerd, a character in If I Ran the Zoo, by Theodor Seuss Geisel.]

---

nerdy adj.

Word History: The word nerd, undefined but illustrated, first appeared in 1950 in Dr. Seuss's If I Ran the Zoo: "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!" (The nerd is a small humanoid creature looking comically angry, like a thin, cross Chester A. Arthur.) Nerd next appears, with a gloss, in the February 10, 1957, issue of the Glasgow, Scotland, Sunday Mail in a regular column entitled "ABC for SQUARES": "Nerda square, any explanation needed?" Many of the terms defined in this "ABC" are unmistakable Americanisms, such as hep, ick, and jazzy, as is the gloss "square," the current meaning of nerd. The third appearance of nerd in print is back in the United States in 1970 in Current Slang: "Nurd [sic], someone with objectionable habits or traits.... An uninteresting person, a 'dud.'" Authorities disagree on whether the two nerdsDr. Seuss's small creature and the teenage slang term in the Glasgow Sunday Mailare the same word. Some experts claim there is no semantic connection and the identity of the words is fortuitous. Others maintain that Dr. Seuss is the true originator of nerd and that the word nerd ("comically unpleasant creature") was picked up by the five- and six-year-olds of 1950 and passed on to their older siblings, who by 1957, as teenagers, had restricted and specified the meaning to the most comically obnoxious creature of their own class, a "square."

---

nerd or nurd

Noun

Slang

1. a boring or unpopular person, esp. one who is obsessed with a particular subject: a computer nerd

2. a stupid and feeble person [origin unknown]

nerdish
nurdish adj

Thesaurus

Noun	1.	nerd - an insignificant student who is ridiculed as being affected or boringly studious dweeb, grind, swot, wonk assimilator, learner, scholar - someone (especially a child) who learns (as from a teacher) or takes up knowledge or beliefs
	2.	nerd - an intelligent but single-minded expert in a particular technical field or profession expert - a person with special knowledge or ability who performs skillfully

---

nerd or nurd

noun 1. (Slang) bore, obsessive, anorak (informal) geek (informal) trainspotter (informal) dork (slang) wonk (informal)

noun 2. fool, weed, drip (informal) sap (slang) wally (slang) sucker (slang) wimp (informal) booby, prat (slang) plonker (slang) twit (informal), chiefly Brit. simpleton, dipstick Brit. (slang) schmuck U.S. (slang) divvy Brit. (slang) putz U.S. (slang) wuss (slang) eejit Scot., Irish dumb-ass (slang) doofus (slang), chiefly U.S. dorba or dorb Austral. (slang) bogan Austral. (slang)

Translations

nerd [nəːd] n (col) → primo/a

---

nerd [nəːd] n (inf) → pauvre mec m, ballot m

---

nerd [nəːd] (inf) n → Schwachkopf m

---

nerd [nəːd] n (col) → sfigato/a, povero/a fesso/a