An individual who:
1. Enjoys learning
2. Does not adhere to social norms

A nerd is *not*:
1. A geek. The circles overlap, but they are not the same.

2. Someone who wears fake "nerdy" glasses
3. Someone who wears suspenders, fake glasses, and bowties on "nerd" day.
4. Someone who thinks of themself as a nerd, yet cannot hold an intelligent debate.
5. If you are reading this article to determine whether you are a nerd or not, you are not. Nerds do not need to look up the definition of "nerd", it is a label with no consequence whatsoever, and nerds have better things to do than play along with societal stereotypes. That being said, if you merely want to see what people think of when they think of the word "nerd", because human thought processes, societal constructs, and philosophy are so interesting, consider yourself a nerd.

Synonyms include booksmart

To get excited by a gadget, or cool technical detail.

noun: The most dangerous people in the entire world. Nerds have invented machine guns, assault rifles, armor piercing ammunition, high explosives, napalm, tanks, anti-personnel mines, torpedoes, cannons, surface-to-air missiles, fighter aircraft, bombers, submarines, destroyers, battleships, aircraft carriers, chemical and biological weapons, nuclear bombs, and ICBMs

1. Unnecessarily large excitement over technology/science/anything about which one is a nerd. The mental equivalent of hardon, hard-on
2. A hard-on caused by a new piece of technology

Never
Ending
Radical
Dude.

Someone who enjoys learning and obtaining new information in general for it's own sake, often without discrimination to different areas of knowledge. The key to recognizing a nerd is if they are completely indifferent to the application of what they learn; they are not inherently inclined to use or not to use the information.

Someone who is a nerd could also be a geek, who is passionate about highly specific interests, or a dork, who is a social outcast, but they do not have to be.

The person you will one day call "Boss"

A studious and smart person who gets made fun of by haters. Nerds are not necessarily the 1960's stereo type with bottle cap glasses, suspenders, button shirts with pens in a shirt pocket, ect. Some nerds are good looking, some are smart, and some are both. Nerds are academicly advanced. However, most nerds are still socially challenged. Nerds are loners. :)
Not
Even
Remotely
Dumb

most people think of nerds as people who are smart and keep to themselves. in my opinion, there aren't really "nerds". they are called nerds because other people are jealous of them. i hate the word nerd. people can be smart and be normal they don't have to be nerds persay.........and i don't like nonsense definitions put on this dictionary, like the defintion of was. instead of nerds, smart people should be called what they are, smart people who are just like that.