lurker

plural lurkers

1. One who lurks.

   1 more example

   It troubled me that there should have been a lurker on the stairs, on that night of all nights in the year, and I asked the watchman, on the chance of eliciting some hopeful explanation as I handed him a dram at the door, whether he had admitted at his gate any gentleman who had perceptibly been dining out?

   1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter XL, in Great Expectations […], volume III, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC, page 3

2. InternetA user who observes a community rather than participating; someone who reads or takes advantage of content on a website, newsgroup, etc. but does not contribute.

   It’s not unusual for people to join video calls with their camera off and microphone muted, but such lurkers can at least be called upon to speak.

   2025 July 2, Lisa Bonos, Danielle Abril, “No one likes meetings. They’re sending their AI note takers instead.”, in The Washington Post, →ISSN, archived from the original on 02 Jul 2025

   1 more example

   However, less than half of lurkers went online that often. Those who post also are more likely than lurkers to use the Internet for both work and pleasure. Posters use the Internet to communicate more with others than lurkers do.

   2013, Richard Davis, Politics Online: Blogs, Chatrooms, and Discussion Groups in American Democracy, Routledge, →ISBN, page 92

   Antonyms: poster

3. UKarchaicdialectalA small fishing-boat.
4. UKobsoleteslangAn impostor; a quack.

   In every large town sham official documents, with crests, seals, and signatures, can be got for half-a-crown. Armed with these, the patterer becomes a ‘lurker,’—that is, an impostor; his papers certify any and every ‘ill that flesh is heir to.’

   1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor; […], volume I (The London Street-folk. Book the First.), London: [George Woodfall], →OCLC, page 219