Word.ws English Dictionary

Ballmer Peak

Ballmer Peak proper noun: a fictional level of drunkenness (originally stated to correspond with a BAC of 0.129–0.138%) said to confer one with superhuman programming ability.

Proper noun

Ballmer Peak

  1. (Internet, humorous) A fictional level of drunkenness (originally stated to correspond with a BAC of 0.129–0.138%) said to confer one with superhuman programming ability.
    • I think he's researching drug use and its relation with Ballmer's Peak.2008 November 13, Domo, “Scoreboard Request for A10 bonus”, in uw.cs.cs241 (Usenet)
    • If the programmers writing autonomous vehicle software are in the Ballmer peak, will they get charged with DWI?2016 June 1, krw, “Reflow soldering for dummies”, in sci.electronics.design (Usenet)

Origin of Ballmer Peak

Coined by American cartoonist, author and engineer Randall Munroe in 2007 in his webcomic xkcd, after Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft from 2000–2014.

Questions about Ballmer Peak

What does Ballmer Peak mean?
Ballmer Peak means a fictional level of drunkenness (originally stated to correspond with a BAC of 0.129–0.138%) said to confer one with superhuman programming ability.
What part of speech is Ballmer Peak?
Ballmer Peak is a proper noun.

Words near Ballmer Peak in the dictionary

  1. ballmakers
  2. Ballman
  3. Ballmans
  4. ballmaxxing
  5. Ballmer
  6. Ballmer Peak
  7. Ballo
  8. Balloch
  9. ballochorous
  10. ballochory
  11. ballock

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: Ballmer Peak (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

Last updated:

Cite this entry: “Ballmer Peak.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/ballmer_peak. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.