wonkish en · ADJ
Pronunciation
- (Southern-England) audio
Etymology
Etymology tree English wonk Proto-Indo-European *-iskos Proto-Germanic *-iskaz Proto-West Germanic *-isk Old English -isċ Middle English -isch English -ish English wonkish From wonk + -ish.
Meanings
-
(informal) Nerdy; bookish; having the qualities of a wonk.
Hillary may have been too wonkish, and Palin not wonkish enough, but they have normalized white females as political candidates for the nation.
2009, Zillah Eisenstein, The Audacity of Races and Genders, Zed Books, →ISBN, page 138:Being a renegade Islamo-punk had run its course, but now I answered brothers' questions in a wonkish intellectual way, ducking and weaving around the truth claims.
2009, Michael Muhammad Knight, Journey to the End of Islam, Soft Skull Press, →ISBN, page 207:According to Greer, the voting classes were ready for someone very much like the wonkish Clinton, with his devotion to "the issues."
1997, Edwin Diamond, Robert A. Silverman, White House to Your House, →ISBN, page 125:Etzler was a follower of the wonkish French utopian Charles Fourier, who promised that the scientific reinvention of nature would transmute the saltwater into lemonade.
2025 March 18, Samuel Moyn, “Can Democrats Learn to Dream Big Again?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 27 Mar 2025:
Forms
| Spelling | Features | Labels | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| more wonkish | Degree=Cmp | lexicographic | |
| most wonkish | Degree=Sup | lexicographic |