nimrod
/ˈnɪmrɒd/
nimrod noun: a foolish person; an idiot.
Noun (1)
nimrod (plural nimrods)
- A foolish person; an idiot.
- Don't stick your fingers in the fan, you nimrod!
- Jules, if you give this nimrod fifteen hundred bucks, I'm gonna shoot 'em on general principle.1994, Quentin Tarantino, Roger Avary, Pulp Fiction, spoken by Vincent (John Travolta)
- Synonyms:
- doofus, fathead, addle-brain, addlehead, addle pate, airhead, baboon, beanbrain, beetlebrain, beetlehead
Proper noun capitalized: Nimrod
Nimrod
- A grandson of Ham; a mighty hunter and king of Shinar.
- Blake's depiction of the biblical Nimrod, whom Erdman traces to Young's poem, recalls Milton's Paradise Lost.1993, G. A. Rosso, Blake's Prophetic Workshop: A Study of The Four Zoas, page 80
- In the fourth century St. Ephraim the Syrian wrote, in his commentary on Genesis, that Nimrod 'ruled in Erekh which is Orhay (Edessa)'.[…]In Jewish and thereafter in Moslem tradition, Nimrod was the foe of Abraham.2005, J. B. Segal, Edessa: The Blessed City, page 1
- A British biplane fighter aircraft manufactured by Hawker Aircraft in the early 1930s.
- A British maritime patrol aircraft manufactured by Hawker Siddeley, in use from 1969 until 2011.
Noun (2) capitalized: Nimrod
Nimrod (plural Nimrods)
- Any great hunter.
- Precisely what I was wondering, my little Nimrod.1948 February 14, William Scott and Lloyd Turner, 5:34 from the start, in Arthur Davis, director, What Makes Daffy Duck, spoken by Daffy Duck (Mel Blanc)
- Old Ekdal, whom Gregers remembers as Lieutenant Ekdal, his father's partner in the timber business up north and a mighty Nimrod, has, after a term of imprisonment for illicit tree-felling, become a shambling old drunkard, who solaces himself by sporting expeditions in the lean-to attic which his...1966, Brian W. Downs, Modern Norwegian Literature 1860-1918, page 116
- Alternative letter-case form of nimrod (“fool; idiot”).
Synonyms of nimrod
30 more synonymsFewer synonyms
Forms of nimrod
| plural | nimrods |
|---|---|
| alternative form | nimnod |
| alternative form | nimwad |
| plural | Nimrods |
Origin of nimrod
In most English-speaking countries, Nimrod is used to denote a hunter or warrior, because the biblical Nimrod is described as "a mighty hunter". In American English, however, the term has acquired a derogatory meaning of "idiot"; there are various hypotheses as to why. Most examples suggest an intermediate form where Nimrod is used deliberately to mock a hunter. Whether this usage was widespread, or how it influenced the final meaning where the hunter connotation is unintended, might be beyond reach. Possible reasons for the shift from "hunter" to "idiot": One suggestion is that Bugs Bunny's references to Elmer Fudd as a "poor little Nimrod", while most likely using the term's "hunter" sense, contributed to the development of a sense "one who is easily confounded". An alternative explanation of this sense is that it derives from the John Steinbeck memoir Travels with Charley: In Search of America, in which Steinbeck used the term sarcastically while describing an inquest that was held after a hunter accidentally shot his partner: "The coroner questioning this nimrod..." The Oxford English Dictionary, in turn, cites a 1933 writing as the first usage of nimrod to refer to a fool...
From Hebrew נִמְרוֹד (Nimród).
Words formed from nimrod
Questions about nimrod
- What does nimrod mean?
- Nimrod means a foolish person; an idiot.
- What part of speech is nimrod?
- Nimrod can be a noun or a proper noun.
- How do you pronounce nimrod?
- Nimrod is pronounced /ˈnɪmrɒd/.
- What is the plural of nimrod?
- The plural of nimrod is nimrods.
Words near nimrod in the dictionary
Source and license
Adapted from Wiktionary: nimrod (page history and authors); Nimrod (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.
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Cite this entry: “nimrod.” Word.ws, https://word.ws/nimrod. Based on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.