"Nerd" "Dork" and "Geek" What's the difference?

[Elijah Joseph Donnelly]

I honestly do not know what is the difference now...All three words seem to be abused by society, I can not tell if they are insults or comliments...So...what's the difference? And...what's your opinion on the three?

[Amber Vargo]

I will repost my blog about it here.
"A nerd is someone who is highly intelligent in one or more subjects, they typically seem to lack social skill because they share few interests with classmates. A geek is someone who obsesses, it does not matter what the obsession is as long as it is extreme. Geeks usually are not the highest ranking students because their obsession takes a lot of time, even if their obsession is math they could do poorly in other subjects. A dork is someone who lacks all social skills and has very few friends, they are typically of average intelligences. A person can be any mix of these traits or have none of them, I think everyone has a little of each at any given time. Everyone has an obsession be it Doctor Who or Football,...everyone is smart at something it might math it might be basketball scores/players." Personal opinion.

[Elijah Joseph Donnelly]

Wow, I think that's one great description

[Amber Vargo]

Thanks, I wrote it during class. To me they're just descriptors "that girls has red hair" is the same as "that girl is really geeky", we've been told that those are mean words but I never viewed them that way. They're just words to me and words can only hurt if you let them; so I think if people took these words back and used them more positively, they would stop being abused.

[Captain Jacqui Sparrow]

I think nerds have social skills. They're just smart and tend to have not-as-mainstream interests. Geeks are obsessive, but in my opinion, it has to be either that extreme or over something that seems "weird" to most of the people in the world. Dorks/dweebs are the people that you end up facepalming over because they have no social graces whatsoever.

I consider myself more of a geek than a nerd. I'm an internet geek. I rarely study because I'm always posting on at least 2 different forums at any given moment. My grades are pretty good, but I'm not in the top 10% of my class or anything. I come off as being waaaaaay smarter than I am because I know lots of random facts and word my sentences carefully. But when it comes to the not-as-practical stuff on tests and homework, I fall kinda short.

[Captain Jacqui Sparrow]

Still, dorks are the ones who lack social skills. Like, they walk up to a random classmate and say, "Judging by the bags under your eyes, you're really tired. You really should go to bed earlier to make the bags under your eyes go away." (a little extreme, but I've seen/heard it happen.) Everyone has brain farts and stuff like that and says the wrong thing at the wrong time. And most people have dorkish tendencies. But a dork is somebody who has no social graces, like what you described. They just weren't taught them/born with them/whatever.

Of course you can be a dork and a nerd at the same time. Smart, into weird things, and being really socially awkward.

[Rachel Evans]

While the three can intermingle I think there's one thing that makes somebody one of the other.
A person's nerdiness is determined by intelligence.
A person's geekiness is determined by an obsession.
And a person's dorkiness is determined by their level of uncool.

A nerd would be the kind of person who has lots of random facts and is in Science Club and Math Club and spends their weekends orgainizing their library. A geek would be someone with an obsession that is widely accepted as being "uncool" such as Doctor Who or Star Wars. Expect them to be your LARPers and fanfiction writers. A dork would be someone who is generally a little less "cool" than their peers. Expect them to be a bit awkward and expect them to potentially try to raise their level of "cool".

And of course, one can has traits of any or all three. :)

[Kenny]

A person's nerdiness is determined by intelligence.
A person's geekiness is determined by an obsession.

Pretty sure it's the other way around.

[Emily Cuddleface]

no i would agree with that. I consider myself a geek, not a nerd. I just have some geeky obsessions like certain science fiction television shows and stuff. I think nerdiness has more to do with intelligence and just knowing everything about everything, especially stuff most people don't really care about. Geekiness is just obsession or passionate interest in a topic that isn't usually socially accepted as "cool"

[Jacob Walker Thompson]

I feel the stereotypical veiw society has on said words follows as such.

Nerd: Inteligent, socially awkward, and spells better than me.

Dork: Sub-category of Geek, Spends alot of time playing games like WOW, not usually very inteligent, and just because uses alot of electronics, doesn't mean they know how they work or anything.

Geek: again, socially awkward, very few but very close friends, usually same gender as friends as they have more interest in things like pok e' mon (regardless of age) and other nastalgic things than the other sex.

[Emily Cuddleface]

ok this is how i've always thought of it. because there is a differene. My brother in particluar is especially picky about it. to us, nerd and dork have more of a negative connotation, but "geek" is something we're totally comfortable with. which is why he hates it that i call myself a nerdfighter. (he prefers to call himself a geekfighter. it just doesn't sound the same tho. idk ha ha)

Dork to me just sounds goofy, abnoxious, and incompitent. Nerd is more really annoyingly smart, a little odd, socially inept and just really uncomfortable and awkward to be around. Geek on the other hand is a term i absolutely take as a compliment, even if it wasn't intended that way. i have two definitions for geek. 1) someone who is very knowledgable about a specific topic that most people aren't interested in 2) a geek is a person with a passionate interest in a specific area that most other people don't have the same kind of appreciation for. like star trek or computers or something.
Anyway, thats just how i distinguish them in my mind.

i have personally always claimed to be a geek, and i am rather particular about it too. as is my brother. However, as a nerdfighter, i feel obligated to say that if you are called any of those three things, nerd, dork, or geek, you should always take it as a compliment :-)

[Abreo]

Heres how I think of them.

Nerd - Someone who is highly itelligent and studies hard and stuff like that.
Geek - Someone who reads comics, plays Magic the Gathering, and D&D
Dork- Someone who has no social skills.

Chances are if you qualify for one of them you qualify for all of them.

[Jackie A]

Has no one read "What's the Difference" from mental floss magazine? I figured a lot of people would have read it, seeing as John Green is a co-author. It compared Geek vs. Nerd vs. Dork.

Here's what it said:
GEEK
In the 1800s, the Scottish word "geck" meant "fool". The word changed to "geek" and was used to describe a type of carnival performer (a person who specialized in eating live animals... ew)
Another theory is that the word "geck" was invented by William Shakespeare in Twelfth Night ("the most notorious geck" Act V)

NERD
It first appeared in "If I Ran the Zoo" by Dr. Seuss in the 1950s... a character wanted to collect "A Nerkle a Nerd and a Seersucker, too!" The theory is that kids just liked the word and started using it to tease one another.
Or, the second theory is that it came from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. In the 50s, they used "knurd" (drunk backwards) to describe kids who studied all the time. I personally like this theory.

DORK
It originally meant penis. Legit. Until the 1960s, "Dirk" aslo meant penis until it suddenly became a shortened version of Richard.

Other words that have been used in place of "nerd" in the past are: wind sucker, dewdropper, Joe Zilch, dudd, pantywaist, oil can, stinkeroo, mullet, nosebleed, roach, schnookle, kook, dimp, dorf, mince, squid, auger, and waldo.