Did you possibly mean wink?
Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. Slang A student who studies excessively; a grind.
- n. Slang One who studies an issue or a topic thoroughly or excessively: "leading a talkathon of policy wonks in a methodical effort to build consensus for his programs” ( Michael Kranish).
Wiktionary
- n. derogatory An overly studious person, particularly student; a nerd.
- n. by extension A policy wonk or other intellectual expert.
WordNet 3.0
- n. an insignificant student who is ridiculed as being affected or boringly studious
Etymologies
- American English student slang 1954; perhaps navy slang before that. Expert sense popularized in the Clinton administration, 1993. (Wiktionary)
- Origin unknown. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“I Know that the policy wonk is the best on EVERY issue.”
“But university leaders are confident that "wonk" - which they define as "an intellectually curious person" or "a knowledgeable Washington insider" - captures something essential about American.”
The Washington Post: American University, now home to the 'American Wonk'
“I became acquainted with someone I call my plant "wonk" -- a walking human thinktank of botany named Eric.”
“Neither a headline-seeker nor a party rebel, he's best described as a wonk, a workhorse, a doer.”
“What typifies the wonk is their utter unawareness of the world and people around them.”
“In a nutshell: A yahoo invades your life with the intentional desire to annoy you, and a wonk is a stupid sort who annoys you without realizing it.”
“Bill was now what you'd call a wonk and looked the part.”
“The longtime congressman happily admits, "One of the reporters in my first campaign called me a policy wonk, that is an accurate description.”
“I would love it if you'd stop using the word "wonk".”
Joe Fitzgibbon Gets Boeing Union and Grocery Worker Endorsements « PubliCola
“The rate of automatic increases to both tax rates and things like soc security benefits is one of those covert "wonk" issues that are key to the future but generally ignored.”
The Default Path for Taxes, Arnold Kling | EconLog | Library of Economics and Liberty
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘wonk’.
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metaphoric references to dogs
As an ongoing part of my project, Dogs in Metaphor and Idiom, Illustrated, (www.metaphordogs.org) I am continually adding terms. If you know a term that fi...
dog, alpha male, at bay, bark, bird dog, bitch, bitchin, bloodhound, bulldog, canaille, canines, cerberus and 131 more...
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important
shamanism, consol, sanguine, iffy, affinity, concatenation, honed, innumberable, aiden, inexorable, vet, suss and 176 more...
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-ishness
I omit words such as thief, cad, or prude if a phoneme change or the addition or subtraction of a letter is required when combining with -ishness.
boor, self, child, wonk, man, dolt, Jew, oaf, Kurd, faint, fool, unself and 20 more...
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Onk-tastic
Words containing the sound /ŏngk/.
Algonquin, Cronkite, Tonka, Tonkin, Wonka, Yonkers, bonk, bonkers, bronco, broncobuster, conk, conker and 53 more...
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Origin Unknown
Words listed as "origin unknown."
spang, nincompoop, lollapalooza, jive, mosey, mull, lush, dog, swizzle, swizzle stick, wonk, hootchy-kootchy and 5 more...
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WORDNIK - words found in "Wordnik"
kino, din, dink, dirk, do, don, dor, dork, dow, down, drink, drown and 54 more...
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known words
words wot i already knew
antisyzygy, calenture, shill, saudade, sehnsucht, squonk, steganographic, anomie, wiggy, grok, hermeneutics, agrise and 206 more...
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Really Cool Four-Letter Words
I marvel at the amazing variety of four-letter words in the English language. And that's not even counting really common (to me) words like fuck.
ibis, pelf, sofa, iota, oboe, lava, icon, sped, puha, pulp, puma, kyat and 150 more...
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Life is just a four-letter word
Everyone's got their favorites. Here are some of mine.
snit, hobo, minx, kiln, loll, pelf, yegg, ugly, bumf, brio, biro, haha and 92 more...
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words found to be generally pleasing
alabaster, mahogany, camphor, coalesce, spire, portmanteau, gadabout, palaver, dolor, dour, dun, luminesce and 610 more...
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spicolli's Words
terrapin, ravenous, fuck, sepulchral, garlic, suss, queer, curmudgeon, foodie, intricate, omphalos, subversion and 534 more...
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samuraizack's Words
floccinaucinihili..., pneumonoultramicr..., bombastic, existentialistic, velocipede, aglet, anatomical snuffbox, wonk, tang, funambulist, quakebuttock, flews and 390 more...
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ADW2
nudnik, temper, intercalate, cleave, scowl, chapfallen, malapropos, disport, annals, paean, paradisiacal, whet and 362 more...
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vinyl's Words
deliverator, finna, metric fuckton, fag, hyphy, ginormous, sacrilicious, fantabulous, macaca, n-word, pterodactyl, genious and 560 more...
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my words
interminable, effete, convocation, philistines, malaise, foibles, deputation, anathematized, morass, stalwart, proselytize, abet and 405 more...
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suzyg's Words
brandish, recompence, shopping, dichotomy, paradigm, reverse osmosis, anyway, despite, drunk, degenerate, insipid, grateful and 438 more...
Tweets
Looking for tweets for wonk.
amacleod03 A disparaging term for a studious or hardworking person. The Oxford English Dictionary asserts that the word wonk derives from “a term commonly applied by foreigners to the ordinary Chinese dog. From the Ningpo pronunciation wou n kyi, of the above two characters.�? Jul 26, 2009
garyth123 a word a day on wonk Dec 1, 2008
stpeter Know spelled backwards. Dec 17, 2006