nerd

• knurd (folk etymology, very rare)
• nurd (very rare)

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.

• (Received Pronunciation, General Australian) IPA^(key): /nɜːd/

  • Audio (General Australian):

    (file)

• (US) enPR: nûrd, IPA^(key): /nɝːd/
• (Scotland) IPA^(key): /neɹd/
• (New Zealand) IPA^(key): /nøːd/
• (Liverpool, fair–fur merger) IPA^(key): /neːd/
• (Humberside, Teesside, fair–fur merger) IPA^(key): /nɛːd/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)d

nerd (plural nerds)

1. (slang, sometimes derogatory) A person who is intellectual but generally introverted.
   • 1953 Advertisement for "Businessman's Lunch", a play by Michael Quinn, in Patricia Brown, Gloria Mundi

     They particularly enjoy making fun of one of their fellows who is not present, whom they consider a hopeless nerd – until, that is, they learn he is engaged to marry the boss's daughter.

   • 1984 December 29, Duncan Mitchel, “The Cult of Gay Machismo”, in Gay Community News, volume 12, number 25, page 9:

     I once found myself listening to a gay man who was saying wistfully, "I wish there was someplace you could go, maybe a club, where only masculine men would be allowed in." Ever tactful, I did not point out to him that if such a place existed, he probably would not be allowed into it, for while he wasn't a campy sort he was too much of a nerd to meet his own specification.

   • 2002, Sam Williams, Free as in Freedom:

     "We were all geeks and nerds, but he was unusually poorly adjusted," recalls Chess, now a mathematics professor at Hunter College.

   • 2009 February 28, “Orszag to present budget blueprint”, in WBBH:

     "Yes, I am super nerd, and the whole room cracked up," Said Orszag.

2. (informal, sometimes derogatory) One who has an intense, obsessive interest in something.

   Synonyms: geek, (Australia) dag, propeller head

   Hyponym: otaku

   a computer nerd

   a comic-book nerd

3. (informal, sometimes derogatory) A member of a subculture revolving around intellectualism, technology, video games, fantasy and science fiction, comic books and assorted media.
4. (informal, sometimes derogatory, dated) One who is stupid and socially inept or unattractive; a social outcast.