dork
/doɹk/
Word Rarity
Rare
Frequency: 3.10 in modern English
9
Scrabble Score
4
Letters
1
Syllables
4
Unique Chars
Meaning
noun
A quirky, silly or stupid, socially inept person, or one who is out of touch with contemporary trends and typically has unfashionable hobbies. (Overlaps conceptually with nerd and geek, but does not imply the same level of intelligence.)
Derogatory; Slang
Example Sentences
- "I entitled the piece "Dorky", dork being slang for a person who does not belong to popular groups, usually an outsider, an odd person, sometimes inept, other times cranky."
- "I didn’t have any clothes and I had short hair and looked like a dork. Girls wouldn’t go out with me."
- "As a matter of fact, this slob was full of information today. He told me why we Jews have different dorks."
- ""You’re dead, Trashmouth," Vince “Boogers” Taliendo told him, pulling his jock up over a dork roughly the size and shape of an anemic peanut."
- ""There's that dork whose wife cut off his dork." And when people ask him for an autograph he writes, "Best of luck to Betsy. Signed, the guy whose wife cut off his penis.""
- "I spent all weekend dorking with the router settings with no luck, though I could get any one out of my 5 PCs on the net when connected directly to the modem."
Etymology
First use appears in the US c. 1961. The sense of a "silly person" is presumably from earlier use as a bowdlerization of dick (“penis”) in student slang, particularly the Midwest. Despite a common misconception, it has never referred specifically to a whale's penis, but penises in general. Alternative etymology derives from dialectal Norwegian dorg (“a mass; heap; a heavy, dimwitted, slovenly person”).
Origin
Word Breakdown
Regional Pronunciation
- American English: /doɹk/
- British English: /dɔːk/