pencil-necked

pencil-necked

1. Particularly weak, meek, or unimpressive; wimpy. No pencil-necked twerp like you is going to give me orders, pal!
2. Very inclined toward academic or intellectual pursuits. I always made sure to make friends with the pencil-necked geeks in my math classes so they would help me out with the homework.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • pencil neck
  • weak tea
  • twerp
  • in pencil
  • pencil out
  • pencil in
  • pencil me in
  • stubbie
  • stubby
  • toady to
References in periodicals archive
Why should we listen to some pencil-necked college professor with no real-world experience?
Gun control, which never worked, loses more ground
Because he was humble, not everyone realized that he sold his Rembrandt-influenced "Pencil-Necked Saints" paintings for as much as $30,000 in ritzy galleries in San Francisco, Santa Fe, NM, and Highlands, NC.
Longtime Journal illustrator Joe McFadden passes away
My first photo of him had been taken the previous year while he was in velvet, and compared to the ones I had just taken, he looked like a pencil-necked teenager.
An old friend: having a history with this monster buck turned out to be bittersweet
If you're a guy, don't ask if I can tell you've been "working out"--especially if you're a pencil-necked geek and ought to know it.
The ho-ho holiday rules: knowing how to get along and make things run more smoothly
Judging by appearance, the titular, CGI hero of Paul a wrinkled, pencil-necked geek with big, almond-shaped eyes and the rumbling voice of Seth Rogen could be a distant cousin of Rango, Johnny Depp's cowboy-chameleon character in the recent animated film of the same name.
Film review : 'Paul'
The nerdy and demanding Thurman (Bailey describes him as "pencil-necked") also spearheaded a change in the corporate culture of the Army recruiting system, a shift to viewing the Army as a "gigantic business" and recruiting as a "stock-control function" (Thurman's words).
America's Army: Making the All-Volunteer Force
Through the course of 10 tracks (eight of which he co-wrote with an eclectic mix of professional hit-makers, including Linda Perry, Desmond Child, Ryan Adams, No Doubt's Tony Kanal, Semisonic's Dan Wilson and Mac Davis), Cuomo proves he is still an incurable romantic and the undisputed poster child for pencil-necked geeks everywhere.
Weezer's `Hurley' finds redemption
A self-described "square, stick-in-the-mud, pencil-necked scientist," he has employed humour, a sprinkling of pop culture references, and intuitive everyday analogies to paint a rich picture of leading-edge theoretical neuroscience and evolutionary biology.
Eyes have given us real 'superpowers', says expert
That's not always easy to do, particularly if you run 37-pound, pencil-necked geeks like my two setters.
The sound and the furry: in thick cover, you can't "see" your dog unless you can hear him
A lot of Monday-morning quarterbacking has ensued, with the usual thick-necked traders blaming their more recent speculative losses on the academic predilections of the same sort of pencil-necked geeks who mined the curve for them in Econ 101.
Central banking dermatologists
I suspect that, had the men of the Royal Welch talked like the pencil-necked, paper-pushing desk jockeys that obviously hold sway at the Ministry of Defence, the regiment's roll of honour would have been curtailed more than somewhat.
History's vanquished in this war of words
The TV industry seems to have written him off as a pencil-necked cheese merchant from days gone by.
McKenna ON A MONDAY; MONDAY JUST GOT BETTER.