nerdom

nerd +‎ -dom; attested in the USA from 1983.[1] Note that -dom is used both in the sense of “domain” (nerds, as a group) and in the sense of “characteristics” (being a nerd, nerdiness).

• Hyphenation: nerd‧dom

nerdom (uncountable)

1. (colloquial, rare) The attitudes and behaviours of a nerd; nerdiness.
   • 1983 April 1, Nan Robertson, “Tigers or ‘top girls,’ Valerie Mahaffey adjusts”, in The New York Times‎, archived from the original on 20 December 2016:

     When she [Valerie Mahaffey] was 17 she fell in love with a schoolmate named Ben: 'Together, we pulled each other out of nerddom,' she said.

   • 1997, Frederick S. Clarke, Cinefantastique, volume 29:

     The self-described "exemplar of nerdom" feels right at home with Carl Sagan's speculative science-fiction.

   • 2008 October, Will Smith, “Why Does Hollywood Give Nerds a Bad Rap?”, in Maximum PC, San Francisco, Calif.: Future US, →ISSN, page 9:

     Even movies that first appear to add a promising element of nerdom always end up doing something dumb, like tarnishing a tense computer-based drama with idiotic and unusable (but oh so very sexy) 3D interfaces.

2. (colloquial, rare) Nerds considered as a group.
   • 2009, Mark Dalrymple, “Foreword”, in Jack Nutting; Dave Mark; Jeff LaMarche, Learn Cocoa on the Mac (Books for Professionals by Professionals), [New York, N.Y.]: Apress, →ISBN, page xi:

     I still chuckle at some of [the] jokes that we targeted to very narrow slices of nerdom.

The rough synonym geekdom is more common.[1]

• nerddom

• geekdom

• Morden, Redmon, modern, normed, rodmen