wonkish

comparative more wonkish · superlative most wonkish

1. informalNerdy; bookish; having the qualities of a wonk.

   According to Greer, the voting classes were ready for someone very much like the wonkish Clinton, with his devotion to "the issues."

   1997, Edwin Diamond, Robert A. Silverman, White House to Your House, →ISBN, page 125

   3 more examples

   Hillary may have been too wonkish, and Palin not wonkish enough, but they have normalized white females as political candidates for the nation.

   2009, Zillah Eisenstein, The Audacity of Races and Genders, Zed Books, →ISBN, page 138

   Being a renegade Islamo-punk had run its course, but now I answered brothers' questions in a wonkish intellectual way, ducking and weaving around the truth claims.

   2009, Michael Muhammad Knight, Journey to the End of Islam, Soft Skull Press, →ISBN, page 207

   Etzler was a follower of the wonkish French utopian Charles Fourier, who promised that the scientific reinvention of nature would transmute the saltwater into lemonade.

   2025 March 18, Samuel Moyn, “Can Democrats Learn to Dream Big Again?”, in The New York Times, →ISSN, archived from the original on 27 Mar 2025

   Synonyms: nerdy