word nerd

word nerd (plural word nerds)

1. A person who is very fond of and knowledgeable about words, their uses, origins and histories, and who typically excels at anagrams, crosswords, and other word games.
   • 1994, Joe Edley, Everything Scrabble‎:

     There was no denying it: After years of being on the fringes of the national SCRABBLE® scene, I had become a bona fide “word nerd.”

   • 1996, San Diego Magazine, volume 49, page 30:

     This admitted word nerd has dug deeply into dusty dictionaries[.]

   • 1997, MacUser, volume 13, page 148, column 3:

     If you're a true word nerd and the definitions you get from an average dictionary just aren't satisfying, then what you need is the Oxford English Dictionary[.]

   • 2018, Kaitlyn Dunnett, Crime & Punctuation‎:

     “Is that some word nerd thing?” I chuckled. “You would not believe how much controversy there is over something as simple as whether or not to put a comma before the word 'and' at the end of a list.”