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What is "geek"

Crossword clues for geek

geek
Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
geek
noun
EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS
▪ Does that make me a geek?
▪ Kids called me Four Eyes, geek, and nerd.
▪ That was part of being a geek.
▪ You probably dismissed them, more or less sympathetically, as nerds and geeks.
The Collaborative International Dictionary
geek

geek \geek\ (g[=e]k), n.

  1. A performer in a carnival, often presented as a wild man, who performs grotesquely disgusting acts, such as biting the head off a live chicken or snake.

  2. Hence: Any eccentric or strange person; an oddball; an eccentric. [WordNet sense 1]

  3. Hence: A student who is socially inept and a misfit in his class, especially one who is an intellectual; a nerd; a dork. [Informal]

  4. Hence: An intellectually inclined person, especially one who is interested in scientific or technical subjects; as, a group of geeks wearing pocket protectors; -- originally a deprecatory and contemptuous term, but in the 1990's, with the increase in popularity of computers and the frequency of accumulation of great wealth by computer entrepreneurs, it has come to be used with noticeable frequency by technically competent people to refer to themselves, ironically and sometimes proudly. [Informal]

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
geek

"sideshow freak," 1916, U.S. carnival and circus slang, perhaps a variant of geck "a fool, dupe, simpleton" (1510s), apparently from Low German geck, from an imitative verb found in North Sea Germanic and Scandinavian meaning "to croak, cackle," and also "to mock, cheat." The modern form and the popular use with reference to circus sideshow "wild men" is from 1946, in William Lindsay Gresham's novel "Nightmare Alley" (made into a film in 1947 starring Tyrone Power).\n\n"An ordinary geek doesn't actually eat snakes, just bites off chunks of 'em, chicken heads and rats."

[Arthur H. Lewis, "Carnival," 1970]

\nBy c.1983, used in teenager slang in reference to peers who lacked social graces but were obsessed with new technology and computers (such as the Anthony Michael Hall character in 1984's "Sixteen Candles").\n\ngeek out vi. To temporarily enter techno-nerd mode while in a non-hackish context, for example at parties held near computer equipment.

[Eric S. Raymond, "The New Hacker's Dictionary," 1996]

Wiktionary
geek

Etymology 1 n. 1 (context dated English) A carnival performer specializing in bizarre and unappetizing behavior. 2 (context colloquial English) A person who is intensely interested in a particular field or hobby and usually asocial. Often used with an attributive noun. 3 (context colloquial by extension English) An expert in a technical field, particularly one having to do with computers. 4 (context colloquial English) The subculture of geeks; an esoteric subject of interest that is marginal to the social mainstream; the philosophy, events, and physical artifacts of geeks. 5 (context colloquial English) An unfashionable or socially undesirable person. vb. (context colloquial English) To get high on cocaine. Etymology 2

n. (context Australia colloquial English) A look.

Related phrases:
WordNet
geek

  1. n. a carnival performer who does disgusting acts

  2. a person with an unusual or odd personality [syn: eccentric, eccentric person, flake, oddball]

Wikipedia
Geek

The word geek is a slang term originally used to describe eccentric or non-mainstream people; in current use, the word typically connotes an expert or enthusiast or a person obsessed with a hobby or intellectual pursuit, with a general pejorative meaning of a "peculiar person, especially one who is perceived to be overly intellectual, unfashionable, or socially awkward".

Although often considered as a pejorative, the term is also used self-referentially without malice or as a source of pride. Its meaning has evolved to refer to "someone who is interested in a subject (usually intellectual or complex) for its own sake".

Geek (disambiguation)

A geek is a slang term for an odd person.

Geek or GEEK may also refer to:

  • Geek!, the first EP by My Bloody Valentine
  • Geeks (2004 film), a 2004 film
  • Geeks (musical duo), a K-pop and Korean hiphop duo
  • The Geek, a 1971 pornographic horror film
  • Geek.com, a Weblog site
  • Geeks.com, an Internet discount retailer of computer hardware
  • A human who bites the heads off of small animals as in a geek show
  • Game Expo East Kent, a UK gaming expo in Margate
Related phrases:

Usage examples of "geek".

What cyberwar people want more than anything in the world is a geek who is genuinely tough.

Sanders Whitby was one of the alpha geeks at that citadel of geekdom, MIT.

It was like he and I shared a secret and he was totally geeked to be talking about it.

Pig was always wired, boringly religious about his heterocyclic chemistry: a bioresearch geek.

One of those balk-line jobs with a freak tent and half a dozen rube games rigged to pay once in ten thousand tries, a couple of animals, maybe a geek, a cotton candy bowl, and a nautch tent with half a dozen worn-over hags.

There is always a throng of testosterifically charged-up idiot boys lined up, dollar bills in hand, to fire paintball bazooka guns at The Geek.

She ignored him for months, presuming he was just the usual spoddy geek who ends up working in a computer company.

Two girls can have a better time, and not have to put up with a lot of yucky kissing and grappling from some Nauseating geek.

I know more football than any truck driver, more baseball than any fantasy geek, more hoops than any baller on the playground.

Europeans who have to travel thousands of miles just to get a job as sucky as the Geek gig, or serving up greasy eats, for that matter?

Pig was always wired, boringly religious about his heterocyclic chemistry: a bioresearch geek.

Richard Nixon has been broken, whipped and castrated all at once, but even for me there is no real crank or elation in having been a front-row spectator at the final scenes, the Deathwatch, the first time in American history that a president has been chased out of the White House and cast down in the ditch with all the other geeks and common criminals.

There were neckless little runts who would be pulverized by one modest hit from a Blades defenseman, refrigerator-sized brutes, and tall, sleek geeks Gemma could envision being blown over by the passing breeze created by a fast-skating teammate.

Back then, if you were into vampires you were some geek who collected Famous Monsters of Filmland and watched Dark Shadows after school.

The Jamesean movement set the table for the geeks to rush in and take over the general management of the game.