as in nerd
a person slavishly devoted to intellectual or academic pursuits
the candidate has an army of policy wonks ready to write for him a position paper on virtually any issue
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Recent Examples of wonk
It has been embraced by pro-transit wonks and former President Joe Biden’s train-nerd transportation secretary, Pete Buttigieg, as well as by tech-world influencers and members of the Trump administration.
—
Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic, 22 Oct. 2025
But there’s no way, the GTW accounting wonks insist, that the Buffs’ bean-counters would ever let CU give up a home game, and a home gate, for a jaunt across the pond.
—Sean Keeler, Denver Post, 11 Oct. 2025
Don’t look now, but the wonks have come out with a way to measure how well AI entities do at forming relationships with people.
—John Werner, Forbes.com, 10 Sep. 2025
The nation’s top health officials, regulators, and policy wonks huddled on the eighth floor of the Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday to take a victory lap for a new report on children’s health that was big on hype—128 ideas!—but slim on actual prescriptions.
—Philip Elliott, Time, 10 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for wonk
Kaitlyn Tiffany, The Atlantic, 22 Oct. 2025
But there’s no way, the GTW accounting wonks insist, that the Buffs’ bean-counters would ever let CU give up a home game, and a home gate, for a jaunt across the pond.
—Sean Keeler, Denver Post, 11 Oct. 2025
Don’t look now, but the wonks have come out with a way to measure how well AI entities do at forming relationships with people.
—John Werner, Forbes.com, 10 Sep. 2025
The nation’s top health officials, regulators, and policy wonks huddled on the eighth floor of the Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday to take a victory lap for a new report on children’s health that was big on hype—128 ideas!—but slim on actual prescriptions.
—Philip Elliott, Time, 10 Sep. 2025
See All Example Sentences for wonk
Recent Examples of Synonyms for wonk
Noun
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Roberts’s pet theory is the Major Questions Doctrine, known to Supreme Court nerds as MQD.—
Noah Feldman,
Twin Cities,
6 Nov. 2025
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Military history nerds will be pleased.—
Daniel Fienberg,
HollywoodReporter,
6 Nov. 2025
Noun
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Crumb, at the time, would be dressed unremarkably casually, in banal pants and sweater, with thick glasses, looking more or less like a geek.—
David Zane Mairowitz,
Rolling Stone,
22 Dec. 2025
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The pissed off punk rockers, the hopelessly antisocial geeks, and the kids doing drugs.—
David Alvarado,
Time,
15 Dec. 2025
Cite this Entry
“Wonk.” Merriam-Webster.com Thesaurus, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/thesaurus/wonk. Accessed 9 Jan. 2026.
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