Dave Wilton has a Big List entry on the word nimrod; as he says, “In current usage, nimrod is often used as a disparaging term for an inept or foolish person, but its original and basic meaning is as a term for a hunter.” That basic meaning derives (as any fule kno) from the biblical figure Nimrod, described as “a mighty hunter before the Lord”; Dave says “The name is probably a variant of Ninurta, a Mesopotamian god of war and the hunt.” The OED (entry revised 2003) has the following senses (I’ve given the first citation for each):
1. † A tyrannical ruler; a tyrant. Obsolete.
?1548 The boystuouse tyrauntes of Sodoma wyth their great Nemroth Winchester,..wyll sturre abought them.
J. Bale, Image of Bothe Churches (new edition) i. Preface sig. Bᵛ2. A great or skilful hunter (frequently ironic); any person who likes to hunt. Also figurative.
1623 The Nimrod fierce is Death, His speedie Grayhounds are, Lust, Sicknesse, Enuie, Care.
W. Drummond, Flowres of Sion 203. North American slang. Usually with lower-case initial. A stupid or contemptible person; an idiot.
1977 Heard you are a Philly fan. What more can you expect from a nitwit, nimrod, R.O.T.C.
Connector (University of Lowell, Massachusetts) 19 April 12/5
Dave quotes the biblical name from the Old English translation of Genesis: “An þære wæs Nenroth; þe Nemroth wæs mihtig on eorþan.” He then gives a very interesting description of the progression of senses in English, with citations from Chaucer (“ne Nebrot, desirous/ To regne, had nat maad his toures hye”), John Bale (“The boystuouse tyrauntes of Sodoma wyth their great Nemroth Winchester”), and Looney Tunes (specifically, the 1948 animated short What Makes Daffy Duck: “Precisely what I was wondering, my little nimrod”). What interests me is the variety of forms; early texts have Nenroth, Nemroth, Nembrot, Nemeroth, and the like; I can’t help finding the modern Nimrod flavorless by comparison. And I note that Russian had Нимврод, Неврод, and Немврод before settling on Нимрод; in fact, in the same Shaginyan mock-poem I quoted here, we find:
Не царь, не бог, не падишах,
Не древних мифов порожденье,
Марс иль какой-нибудь Немврод, —
Сам комиссар за загражденье
Загнал державный свой народ!Not king, not god, not padishah,
Not any fruit of ancient myths,
Mars or some Nembrod or other —
The commissar drove his mighty people
Beyond the barrier himself!
Bring back Nembrod, say I; besides being more impressive, it will remove any possibility of confusion with the modern slang term.
Nimrod is simply a rendition of the Masoretic Hebrew pronunciation.
The latest edition of Gesenius Handwörterbuch says “Etym. und Bdtg. unklar”. Some derive the name from Ninurta, but others claim it’s derived from Marduk. The forms Nebrod or Nemrod are from Greek and Latin translations of the Hebrew Bible. Josephus has Nabrodes.
not to be confused with
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerods
(\rimshot)
I am so used to the Biblical reference that I am unable to shake off the feeling that the pejoritive sense is simply due to deep ignorance.
(I actually remember my first encounter with the pejorative sense: I did at the time – mistakenly – suppose that it was an error of the familiar kind where a not very literary reader has come across an unfamiliar word and guessed its meaning incorrectly from the context.)
If it’s just American, that would explain a lot. In hindsight, I’ve only seen that sense in US sources.
Some derive the name from Ninurta, but others claim it’s derived from Marduk.
And then there’s David Rohl’s near-crackpot (but intriguing) suggestion that it’s derived from Enmerkar.
I suspect that nimrod became an insult because of some sound-meaning association, perhaps like nitwit. Green also has nimshi, an obscure Old Testament name. There are many funny names in the OT, and the bad kids of the 19th century surely utilized them for sinful purposes.
Jumping Jehosaphat!
”I suspect that nimrod became an insult because of some sound-meaning association, perhaps like nitwit…”
I recently heard a theory on Youtube that Nimrod became an insult due to another Looney Tunes cartoon where Bugs Bunny (or another character ) called Elmer Fudd “Nimrod” in a sarcastic way, the way one might call an inept detective “Sherlock” or a dumb person “Einstein”. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is truth to this since, at least until the 90s, Looney Tunes were constantly played on television on Saturdays and in early afternoons on weekdays. Kids watching after school wouldn’t get the reference and only see Bugs making fun of Elmer and assume that “Nimrod” was a straight insult.
I’m surprised they’re not quoting Buggs Bunny, in reference to Elmer Fudd, as a reference for the disparaging meaning.
Green says that it was “popularized” by the 1940 Bugs Bunny cartoon, but the word is documented earlier, from 1933. Bugs mostly used existing slang.