"pencil-neck" - Word of the Day from the OED

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pencil-neck, n. and adj.

DRAFT ENTRY Dec. 2005

slang (usu. depreciative). orig. U.S.

Brit. /pnslnk/, U.S. /pnslnk/  [< PENCIL n. + NECK n.¹] 

    A. n.

    1. A long thin neck.

1968 P. K. DICK Do Androids dream of Electric Sheep? 79 I'll have to break your pencil neck. 1976 Washington Post 15 Mar. C9/1 Pinky's poor pencil neck isn't likely to develop added musculature. 2002 Sunday Times (Nexis) 16 June, I have a pencil neck but my shoulders are as wide as any man's.

    2. An excessively studious or effete person; a person with a poor physique (as exemplified by a thin or scrawny neck); a weakling. Hence as a general term of abuse.

1968 C. F. BAKER et al College Undergraduate Slang Study (typescript) 169 Pencilneck, a person who studies a great deal. 1987 C. HIAASEN Double Whammy (1989) 244 Okay, pencil-neck, let's hear the bad news. 1990 N. BAKER Room Temperature ix. 73 They wouldn't even know what a pencil neck was until I ramped up and began a course of concentrated reading more fanatically comprehensive even than De Quincey's eighteen-hour-a-day burst at Oxford. 1991 Musclemag Mar. 109/1 Society has jobs for strong-men, just as it has jobs for pencil-necks. 2001 P. TSATSOULINE Russian Kettlebell Challenge i. 3 Poddubny made himself a 16kg caneso he could amuse himself watching pencilnecks at coat checks drop it on their toes.

    B. adj. (attrib.).    Thin, scrawny; weak, effete.

1977 ‘J. LEGEND’ (title of song) Pencil neck geek. 1987 Los Angeles Times (Nexis) 30 Mar. III. 3/1 Let's face it, we're a nation of pencil-neck wimps. 1998 J. CAHILL Meadowlands in Sopranos (television shooting script) 1st Ser. 43 You pencil-neck fuck, I could pop your head like a blister.

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