geek
UK[ɡiːk]US[ɡiːk]
n
A person who is very knowledgeable and enthusiastic about a specific subject, especially one of specialist or minority interest.
n
(dated/informal) A person who is socially awkward and unpopular, especially one who is obsessively devoted to a particular interest.
Etymology
The word "geek" has a vivid and somewhat carnivalesque history. It entered mainstream American English from carnival and circus slang, where a "geek" was a performer who carried out shocking or bizarre acts, such as biting the head off a live chicken. This term itself was a variant of the earlier English dialect word "geck," meaning a fool or simpleton, which has Germanic roots, possibly related to the Low German "geck." Over the late 20th century, the term was adopted within computer enthusiast communities as a badge of pride, undergoing a dramatic semantic shift from denoting a socially marginal performer to describing a person with deep, passionate expertise in a technical or niche field, thereby transforming a term of derision into one often embraced with positive connotations.
Analysis
This word is a simplex loanword. Its direct origin is from English dialectal 'geek' or 'geck', meaning a fool or simpleton, which itself likely came from Low German 'geck'.
Examples
He's a real computer geek who builds his own servers.
The film festival was full of sci-fi geeks discussing the latest theories.
She's a grammar geek who loves correcting punctuation errors.