Word Story
As an adjective it describes someone or something marked by intense, slightly obsessive enthusiasm for a specialised subject, usually with an implied touch of social awkwardness or unfashionable taste, especially where technology, games, or niche lore are concerned. The tone is flexible: it can sting when aimed as an insult, but it is just as often warm, self-deprecating, or openly proud. In everyday use it attaches to people, pastimes, and objects alike: a hobby nobody else understands, a hobbyist's meticulously organised spreadsheet, a pair of thick-rimmed glasses worn without irony. Fan conventions are a good gauge of how the word has shifted, since attendees wear the label on T-shirts rather than dodging it, and 'geek chic' became a fashion shorthand for the same knowing, detail-loving sensibility. A colleague who can recite every specification of a decade-old laptop is being described in exactly this spirit.