geekdar

English

Etymology

From geek +‎ -dar.

Noun

geekdar (uncountable)

1. (slang) The ability to detect whether or not a person is a geek.
   • 1996 October 28, Steven Levine, “Geekdar (Was: Re: "STR8 Acting" is just that....(NOT!))”, in soc.motss‎^[1] (Usenet):

     This gaydar/geekdar confusion got completely out of hand at the LISA/USENIX conference in Chicago a few weeks ago. While there is certainly a gay presence at all levels at this conference, it is not, in fact, a motss.con.

   • 2005 March 6, googlegroups2sucks [username], “Re: A Question about Buddhism in the United States”, in talk.religion.buddhism‎^[2] (Usenet):

     quite the reverse, and if they want to argue socialization fine, but let's talk about that particular behemoth before we talk about other sexist undercurrents, because it's the rare woman who doesn't have a geekdar on alert 24/7 in her subconscious ready to blink red at the slightest hint of abnormality and urges them to say, "get a life" without any regard for the flipside benefits such as expertise, competence, excellence that they may posess^[sic].

   • 2009 September 29, Daniel Dreibelbis, “It Might Get Loud - short film review”, in alt.guitar‎^[3] (Usenet):

     Plus my geekdar noticed the MacBook running Ableton Live that he uses for demo writing these days (earlier in the film he pulls out his old 4-track cassette recorder and plays old U2 demos).