geek
noun · verb
Simple meaning
Someone who is intensely interested in a particular field or hobby and often having limited or nonstandard social skills.
Pronunciation
Say it like this:
geekIPA pronunciation (US)
ˈɡik
This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.
IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.
Definition
Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.
noun
colloquial
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.
colloquialby extension
An expert in a technical field, particularly one having to do with computers.
uncountablecolloquial
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.
colloquial
An unfashionable or socially undesirable person.
Australiacolloquial
A look.
verb
intransitive
To perform bizarre and unpleasant feats as part of a carnival.
(by extension, intransitive, African-American Vernacular, slang) To be under the influence of a mood-altering drug.
intransitivecolloquial
To enthusiastically engage in geek-like or nerdy interests.
Word Aura™
How this word commonly comes across.
Aura for this meaning
This meaning: 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.
Used this way, geek is a reasonably familiar word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in everyday conversation and social media or informal writing contexts.
- Emotional tone
- Neutral
- Formality
- Casual
- Intensity
- Moderate
- How common
- Moderately common
- Connotation
- Playful
- Usage feel
- Casual and conversational
Where it naturally appears
- Everyday conversation
- Social media/informal writing
Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.
More ways to use geek
- “He is a computer geek who loves to spend hours coding new programs.”
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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.