egghead

American  

[eg-hed] / ˈɛgˌhɛd /

noun

Slang: Usually Disparaging.

• eggheads
  plural

1. an intellectual.

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egghead British  

/ ˈɛɡˌhɛd /

noun

1. informal an intellectual; highbrow

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Sensitive Note

This term is usually used with disparaging intent, implying that an intellectual is out-of-touch with ordinary people. Though first used by journalists to insult editorial writers, egghead was popularized as an epithet of Adlai Stevenson, the 1952 Democratic presidential candidate.

Other Word Forms

Noun Inflected Forms

• eggheads
  plural

Etymology

Origin of egghead

1915–20; egg ¹ + head; by analogy with someone who is bald

Explanation

An egghead is a smart, nerdy person. You might call your studious older brother, who always seems to have a book in his hand, an egghead. The word egghead is a very informal, slightly insulting name for an intellectual. College libraries are full of eggheads, academics who are researching and writing and thinking about their scholarly pursuits. The word originally meant "bald person," but it came to mean "smart person" in Chicago-area slang, particularly among newspaper reporters around 1918.

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

egghead eggheads

Many seemed to regard Leibowitz as an interloping egghead.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 25, 2026

Bump is a columnist for The Washington Post with a 1950s egghead vibe who writes an appealing newsletter called How to Read This Chart.

From New York Times ● Jan. 24, 2023

Individual investors and savers, however, don’t need some economic egghead to give a recession an official stamp of approval.

From Seattle Times ● Aug. 13, 2022

The recruiter had explained it, but you wanted to get it from the egghead, not the Parental Unit Liaison.

From Slate ● May 30, 2020

Call me an egghead, but that's how I see it.

From "Me Talk Pretty One Day" by David Sedaris

What's a megastar to do when she has defined an entire summer, produced a multi-million-selling album and even persuaded the dictionary eggheads to declare "brat" a word of the year?

From Barron's ● Jan. 24, 2026

However, she says it soon transpired "they weren't quite the eggheads we thought they were".

From BBC ● Nov. 14, 2025

Which is a reminder even to the eggheads that no one has ever won the Ryder Cup on a spreadsheet.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Sep. 26, 2025

The first half of “NASA Archives” reflects that vision of postwar America, flyboys with buzz cuts and aviator sunglasses, eggheads in headsets flipping switches at mission control.

From Los Angeles Times ● Feb. 14, 2019

And—most remarkable— the attention came from all kinds of kids: shy mice and princesses, jocks and eggheads.

From "Stargirl" by Jerry Spinelli