Where did we get the term, "nerd" from?

Answer 1

The word nerd, undefined but illustrated, first appeared in 1950 in Dr. Seuss's If I Ran the Zoo: "And then, just to show them, I'll sail to Ka-Troo And Bring Back an It-Kutch a Preep and a Proo A Nerkle a Nerd and a Seersucker, too!" (The nerd is a small humanoid creature looking comically angry, like a thin, cross Chester A. Arthur.) Nerd next appears, with a gloss, in the February 10, 1957, issue of the Glasgow, Scotland, Sunday Mail in a regular column entitled "ABC for SQUARES": "Nerda square, any explanation needed?" Many of the terms defined in this "ABC" are unmistakable Americanisms, such as hep, ick, and jazzy, as is the gloss "square," the current meaning of nerd. The third appearance of nerd in print is back in the United States in 1970 in Current Slang: "Nurd [sic], someone with objectionable habits or traits.... An uninteresting person, a 'dud.'" Authorities disagree on whether the two nerds, Dr. Seuss's small creature and the teenage slang term in the Glasgow Sunday Mail, are the same word. Some experts claim there is no semantic connection and the identity of the words is fortuitous. Others maintain that Dr. Seuss is the true originator of nerd and that the word nerd ("comically unpleasant creature") was picked up by the five- and six-year-olds of 1950 and passed on to their older siblings, who by 1957, as teenagers, had restricted and specified the meaning to the most comically obnoxious creature of their own class, a "square."

Answer 2

It's from the name of a character in the Dr. Seuss children's books. However, author Theodor Seuss Geisel himself probably created the word from "gooneybird," a slang word in some parts of the United States, especially New York, for a goofy or odd-ballish person. Although some sources I've read said that the word was first used as early as 1966, I remember that the word wasn't commonplace until about 1975. When I was in junior high and high school in the 1960's, kids used other words to describe someone who was a nerd like "fink," "drip," and "booboohead."

Answer 3

The account of "nerd" coming from Theodore Geisel (Dr. Seuss) in 1950 is the most widely accepted.

The first time the word appeard in print was in 1957.

Another possible explanation is that it may be a variation of the 1940's slang term NERT, itself a variation of "nut."

Answer 4

I believe it was a term coined to described your grandfather.

Answer 5

sometimes people call me nerd, but thats a bunch of BULLCRAP! im the toughest guy i know

Answer 6

see here:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nerd