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Definitions

American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

  1. n. A person regarded as foolish, inept, or clumsy.
  2. n. A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept.
  3. n. A carnival performer whose show consists of bizarre acts, such as biting the head off a live chicken.
  4. v. To excite emotionally: I'm geeked about that new video game.

Wiktionary

  1. n. A carnival performer specializing in bizarre and unappetizing behavior.
  2. n. A person who is intensely interested in a particular field or hobby and usually antisocial. Often used with an attributive noun.
  3. n. An expert in a technical field, particularly one having to do with computers.
  4. n. 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. n. An unfashionable or socially undesirable person.
  6. n. A look.
  7. v. To get high on cocaine.

GNU Webster's 1913

  1. n. 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. n. Any eccentric or strange person; an oddball; an eccentric.
  3. n. A student who is socially inept and a misfit in his class, especially one who is an intellectual; a nerd; a dork.
  4. n. An intellectually inclined person, especially one who is interested in scientific or technical subjects; ; -- 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.

WordNet 3.0

  1. n. a carnival performer who does disgusting acts
  2. n. a person with an unusual or odd personality

Etymologies

  1. Perhaps alteration of dialectal geck, fool, from Low German gek, from Middle Low German.

Examples

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Lists

These user-created lists contain the word ‘geek’.

Comments

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  • agenttgirl I am a total geek/nerd. Geeks are totally Boschness for those of you who know what that means ;) Jun 12, 2011

  • oroboros Geek evolution

    (via SoG on twitter) Oct 22, 2010

  • john You hand in your ticket
    And you go watch the geek
    Who immediately walks up to you
    When he hears you speak
    And says, "How does it feel
    To be such a freak?"
    And you say, "Impossible"
    As he hands you a bone
    - Bob Dylan, Ballad of a Thin Man Oct 12, 2007

‘geek’ has been looked up 2701 times, loved by 5 people, added to 56 lists, commented on 3 times, and has a Scrabble score of 9.