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geek

Pronunciation: /ɡiːk/

The English word “geek” has 11 meanings listed here.

noun

  1. A carnival performer specializing in bizarre and unappetizing behavior.
  2. A person who is intensely interested in a particular field or hobby and often having limited or nonstandard social skills. Often used with an attributive noun.
  3. An expert in a technical field, particularly one having to do with computers.
  4. The subculture of geeks; an esoteric subject of interest that is marginal to the social mainstream; the philosophy, events, and physical artifacts of geeks; geekness.
  5. An unfashionable or socially undesirable person.
  6. A look.

verb

  1. To perform bizarre and unpleasant feats as part of a carnival.
  2. To enthusiastically engage in geek-like or nerdy interests.
  3. To be nervous or hyperactive due to using crack cocaine.
  4. To be under the influence of a mood-altering drug.
  5. To look; to peep; to stare about intently.

Etymology

Started as carnival slang, likely from the British dialectal term geck (“a fool, dupe, simpleton”) (1510s), apparently from Dutch gek or Low German geck, from an imitative verb found in North Sea Germanic and Scandinavian meaning "to croak, cackle," and also "to mock, cheat" (Dutch gekken, German gecken, Danish gække, Norwegian gakke, Swedish gäcka). The root still survives in the Dutch adjective…

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Definitions are from Wiktionary, extracted by Kaikki.org, and are available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.