wonk

Related to wonk: Jawn

wonk

slang Someone who is overly preoccupied or excited by something considered by others to be dull, unfashionable, or unappealingly complex, especially academia or a particular area thereof; a nerd. Come on, don't be such a wonk! Come to the party with us—you can finish studying tomorrow! I've always been something of an international tax law wonk ever since college. I don't know what it is, but I could spend hours at a time going through the endless minutiae of the field. He's the type of wonk who enjoys running into such complicated problems because it lets him flex his powers of deductive reasoning.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.

wonk

(wɔŋk)
1. n. an earnest student. (Collegiate.) Yes, you could call Martin a wonk. In fact, he’s the classic wonk.
2. n. a bureaucrat; a flunky. The State Department policy wonks were up all night putting together the report.
McGraw-Hill's Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions
See also:
  • square
  • bound up with (someone or something)
  • obsess
  • obsessed with
  • obsessed with (someone or something)
  • nerd magnet
  • spaced (out)
  • spacey
  • spacy
  • have (one's) mind on (something)
References in periodicals archive
Her work appeals to sensory experience and emotion over objectivity and intellect, which is why the photogravures in Nocturnes work so well with Wonk's poems: nothing is literal, obvious, or rational.
The tension between my understanding of good education policy--driven by a deep commitment to equity and the belief that an outstanding education can transform lives, and this country--and what is right for my daughters makes me both a better policy wonk and a better father.
Estelle Morris complained about being done in by the wonks in the Number 10 policy unit, intent on badgering her into accepting a dilution of the comprehensive system and top-up fees.
The role of president was consumed by it, and in fact a long series of contests between Republican "warriors" and Democratic "wonks" resulted in the postwar domination of the White House by the GOP.
Alterman throws all sorts of arguments at this one: voting for Clinton doesn't mean you're a liberal like European social democrats or the American philosopher John Rawls; some voted for Clinton because he was a boomer like them or a policy wonk like them, or a "New Democrat" in favor of the death penalty and ending welfare.
In addition to saving corporations, Gerstner doubles as an education wonk: He co-chairs Achieve, Inc., a bipartisan group founded by governors and corporate leaders in the mid-1990s to advance national standards and testing.
I was reminded of this the other day as I listened to an exasperated liberal policy wonk snapping at a reporter who had picked up on some of the Bush Administration's rhetoric.
I DON'T know why Grayson is surprised to finally twig that his mum is a demented wonk.
In a recent wonk entry, Klein does his usual bit about lies -- damn lies -- and Republicans.
Maggie Thatcher's old speech-writer and policy wonk, Robin Harris, sticks in the stiletto repeatedly.
After two decades in Washington as a wonk working among hacks, I have come to the conclusion that the gap between Republicans and Democrats is as nothing compared to the one between these two tribes.
"While we insist upon the illusion of a permanent continental nation that has existed less than a third as long as the Moorish occupation of Spain," he writes, "we may find that we have become instead the creators of its diluted successor, which may be the most we can hope for." In its fatalism, this book steadfastly refuses to turn into a policy wonk's bible.
The first of Evers's two deputies is Leslye Arsht, a Republican education policy wonk who served as deputy press secretary under Ronald Reagan and then in the Department of Education under George H.W.
The book is sometimes as unwieldy as its title, crammed with information aimed at pleasing virtually everyone from expert to novice, of use to both the first-time investor and the experienced policy wonk. But to the surprise, perhaps, of those who see Levitt as a silver-haired establishmentarian, what he has written is in essence an expose, laying bare an amazing array of traps and rip-offs that await unsuspecting investors.
Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.) and a wonk obsessed with the JFK assassination.