Is There An Actual Definition For The Term “Word Nerd”?

If you鈥檙e anything like us, you collect words the same way that other people collect coins or Pok茅mon cards. You think about words while you鈥檙e dreaming, and you鈥檙e constantly on the hunt for new words during the day. You underline new vocabulary in books, you keep a note in your smartphone of new words you heard on a podcast, and your friends are afraid to play against you in Scrabble.

You鈥檙e a word nerd.

And while there may not be a formal definition in the dictionary … yet(!) … we think we’ve found some pretty good beginnings of a definition in the making. We recently asked our Twitter followers to share with us how they were a word nerd without explicitly saying they were a word nerd, and received a deluge of responses.

Tell us you're a word nerd without telling us you're a word nerd.

— Dictionary.com (@Dictionarycom)

Here are just a few of some of our favorite responses:

I learned how to spell the word syzygy when I was four years old.

— imaknightfan (@Knightfan95)

Do you remember when Jupiter and Saturn aligned in November 2020? That was a syzygy. And some people learn to spell it when they鈥檙e four-years-old.

My loquacious likings for the lore of latter lives, lives lusciously throughout my lingering lust for living.

— Davide the Destroyer馃嚭馃嚫 (@Amati9)

We have to admit, we鈥檙e a sucker for alliteration.

My mother used to punish me for finishing my sentences with a preposition.

— Jamie Staud. (@Caciolu)

Tough, but some people are real grammar sticklers.

I spent a year asking everyone I encountered what their favorite word was. That was seven years ago and I still look through the notebook where I wrote down all those words.

— Shana (@cookoorikoo)

This is such a great idea, that we might steal it.

Facetious is my favorite word because it contains all the vowels and in order

— maya be (@la_pinchipessa)

We鈥檙e having a difficult time taking this seriously (wink, wink). Don’t get it? Look up the meaning of facetious here.

"Taco cat" is my favorite palindrome.

— Hula Bunny (@hulabunny)

We don鈥檛 know whether this palindrome is delicious or adorable.

Read more about some other palindromes here to see if you agree about taco cat.

The first word I tried to type using Swype on my Android phone was "discombobulated."

— Paula McGovern (@KaosP)

We feel discombobulated thinking about all that swiping.

I use ten highfalutin words where one simple word would suffice! 馃檭馃檭馃檭

— VOXINDICA (@VOXINDICA)

Highfalutin is one of those words that sounds expensive, but isn鈥檛.

I follow dictionaries on Twitter.

— Megara Likniteia (@MegaraLikniteia)

Case closed.

Of course, word nerds aren’t the only type of nerds around鈥攖here are a lot more. Did you know these types of nerds also existed?