Word.ws English Dictionary

basement dweller

basement dweller noun: an adult who lives in their parents' house (stereotypically in their basement); often with implications of idleness or social awkwardness.

Noun

basement dweller (plural basement dwellers)

  1. (derogatory, informal, sometimes) An adult who lives in their parents' house (stereotypically in their basement); often with implications of idleness or social awkwardness.
    • Who Do You Hang With — Basement Dwellers or Penthouse Cheerleaders? It's important to take regular inventory of the people you are surrounding yourself with on a fairly consistent basis.2014, Nicole R. Matthews, Permission!, page 44
    • Over the years, I had shared the square feet of this office space with other basement dwellers, mostly squirrels and rabbits, and unfortunately a few skunks.2009, Mary Stuever, The Forester's Log: Musings from the Woods
  2. (Internet, broadly, derogatory, informal, usually) A nerd or geek; a person lacking a social life.

Forms of basement dweller

pluralbasement dwellers
alternative formbasement-dweller

Words formed from basement dweller

Questions about basement dweller

What does basement dweller mean?
Basement dweller means an adult who lives in their parents' house (stereotypically in their basement); often with implications of idleness or social awkwardness.
What part of speech is basement dweller?
Basement dweller is a noun.
What is the plural of basement dweller?
The plural of basement dweller is basement dwellers.

Words near basement dweller in the dictionary

  1. basement
  2. basement apartment
  3. basement apartments
  4. basement battler
  5. basement battlers
  6. basement dweller
  7. basement dwellers
  8. basement membrane
  9. basement membranes
  10. basement-dweller
  11. basement-dwellers

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: basement dweller (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:

Pronunciation audio from Wikimedia Commons, each file under its own free license: LL-Q1860 (eng)-Flame, not lame-basement-dweller.wav.

Cite this entry: “basement dweller.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/basement_dweller. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.