wolfamongyou: I could see how calling someone a “mighty hunter” sarcastically could lead to that. How awesome we could see the growth and movement of language.
AudibleNod: It’s like calling some Einstein or Sherlock after they posit a stupid question or make a rookie mistake.
NYScott: Wait, does that mean the color [maroon](https://youtu.be/Y8GGpYFmkYI) isn’t dumb?
sparrowxc: That is considered one possibility, [but many discount it.](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/nimrod)
greatgildersleeve: [W.C. Fields] (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLLQ1VGK1wQ) used that reference beforehand. Joke at :39.
springfeeeeeeeeel: Yes he was comparing him to Nimrod sarcastically. Like when you call a dumb guy Einstein sarcastically.
infinitewindow: Someone suggested that a Doonesbury strip had an offscreen character think “Damn straight!” about a square character who had just expressed an opinion, and that readers, unfamiliar with the phrase, took it to mean “you are correct!” instead of “Obnoxious conformist!” Now when anyone says “damn straight” they mean “yes indeed” and not “vile traditionalist.”
kheller181: I remember calling my cousin a Nimrod as a kid and my grandma asking why I was calling him a great hunter. And then correcting her that I was calling him stupid, good times.
Melmab: Every time I hear Nimrod, I think of this [Nimrod](http://villains.wikia.com/wiki/Nimrod_(Marvel))
xlinkedx: There was a mighty biblical hunter named Elmer Fudd?
fgsgeneg: I heard that folks in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan refer to themselves as Nimrods.
dkauffman: There’s also a neat translation error from verse Buscemi 9:11 about how we associated “firefighter” with someone who douses flames or performs other emergency on-site medical practices, when it really means “actor”.
Soonerfan32: What a maroon.
LostRib: This came up at a trivia night where they asked about a green day album that shared its name with a biblical hunter. We only got it by process of elimination since Dookie seemed even less likely to have been in the bible
NoOneOnReddit: I have a couple ancestors whose names were “Nimrod.”
snarpy: Also the bad guy in a pretty awesome issue of Uncanny X-men. He’s a kind of super sentinel that nearly beats them, until Rogue absorbs all the other X-Men’s powers on purpose and barely defeats him.
Fucking great battle.
amolad: Even the old, classic cartoons were more educated than you.
CptNerditude: What a maroon!
TheHornyCripple: I actually know someone named Nimrod. It’s a somewhat common name in Israel.
Dymarob: Can’t really blame children for not knowing biblical characters.
Thelonious_Cube: Not so fast, there!
See [this thread](https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/142761/come-on-don-t-be-such-a-nimrod) – here are the relevant parts:
> OED online has a wider second definition than that given in the question:
>>2. A great or skilful hunter (freq. ironic); any person who likes to hunt. Also fig.
This “frequently ironic” may be the transitional clue between the great hunter of old and the stupid or contemptible person of today, first quoted by the OED in 1933.
>The 2008 New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English says:
>>nimrod noun a fool, a stupid person, a bungler. Jonathan Lighter writes that ‘currency of the term owes much to its appearance in a 1940s Warner Bros. cartoon in which Bugs Bunny refers to the hunter Elmer Fudd as “poor little Nimrod”’. It is not clear that watchers of the cartoon understood the C18 sense of the word as ‘a great hunter’, but the term has stuck US, 1932
>The OED’s 1933 is somewhat ambiguous, it could be referring to a bad hunter:
>>1933 B. Hecht & G. Fowler Great Magoo iii. i. 183 He’s in love with her. That makes about the tenth. The same old Nimrod. Won’t let her alone for a second.
Their next idiot quotation isn’t until 1963. However, etymonline.com isn’t convinced by Bugs Bunny changing the meaning:
>>It came to mean “geek, klutz” by 1983 in teenager slang, for unknown reasons. (Amateur theories include its occasional use in “Bugs Bunny” cartoon episodes featuring rabbit-hunting Elmer Fudd as a foil; its possible ironic use, among hunters, for a clumsy member of their fraternity; or a stereotype of deer hunters by the non-hunting population in the U.S.)
>As it happens, Nimrod is also given as one amongst two whole-column-lengths of synonyms for penis in Farmer and Henley’s 1891 Slang and its analogues past and present.
See also the W. C. Fields clip posted here
gkiltz: The school bully used to call me, “A piece of Nimrod shit!”
No I don’t know how his nose and tooth got broken on graduation night!!
Oldskoolguitar: Nimrod became ironic, just like when calling some Enistein. When in fact they did something or said something stupid.
ToPimpAButterface: [This](https://youtu.be/yatO91d1N6E) makes a lot more sense now.
Slapstique: I actually want to name my future dog Nimrod for this reason. It has a cool meaning but would still be comical.
KITTYCAKE84: And here this whole time, i thought he was calling him stupid
notthecheese: Heh heh…pie hole nimrod
Mystiic_Madness: Fun Fact: December 25th is the birthday of Nimrod and after he died his mother/wife (Yes.. i said mother) set up a tree and said Nimrod will come back after death and put presents under the tree.
This is where Christmas actually comes from.
yaxamie: From Wikipedia:
>Extra-biblical traditions associating him with the Tower of Babel led to his reputation as a king who was rebellious against God.
Basically, Nimrod gets credited for people not being able to understand each other anymore. God “confused our speech” as a result of the tower being built, which caused all of mankind to shard and spread.
You know how you have that uncle who you doesn’t understand you (and vice versa)? This is because of Nimrod, more or less. On the surface this myth is about the reason we have different languages, but I prefer a broader reading to this verse:
> The Lord said, “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. Come, let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other.”
Confusing our language, after all, doesn’t have to mean simply that we speak English instead of Spanish. After all, think of all the times you couldn’t get your point across. Imagine what mankind could do if we spoke perfectly what’s in our minds and hearts to one another without misunderstanding! We could reach the heavens!
RMeagherAtroefy: I kinda want to name my next bird dog Nimrod now.
machlangsam: Son of Cush…a mighty hunter and…pothead or pot farmer?
A_Falcon_Bird: …when sarcasm is taken seriously
doctorcrimson: Was he responsible for the diversity of language on earth and therefor a complete failure?
WingmanZer0: This explains the X-men character named “Nimrod”. Nimrod is an unstoppable mutant hunting robot in the comics. I never understood why it had this name until now.
Zulakki: what a bunch of maroons
Skeith_Hikaru: Some people are just nimrods.
hypnogoad: Annnnd, that’s how I start my day long Pixies binge. (Starting with ‘Nimrods Son’)
ghaelon: i always wondered why the sentinel ‘nimrod’ in the xmen franchise was named ‘idiot’
CradleRobin: I mean, he was a mighty hunter in opposition to God. So that could still be considered dimwitted imo.
BerenBeren: Nimrod reminds me of Dan Cummins’ Timesuck podcast, where Nimrod is described as “a giant space Sasquatch the size of an entire galaxy with the head of a chupacabra who rides a black unicorn with flaming suns for eyes.”
He also has an alpha/omega ballsack. Very interesting stuff.
Created as a way to demonstrate the bullshit origins of scientology. Give it a listen if you’re interested, link to the podcast website included below. It’s bonus episode 4.
Hail [Nimrod](https://timesuckpodcast.com/)!
CherethCutestoryJD: I wish I was the grandson of Ham.
shartmonger: Alex on modern family used this very cleverly in one of the last couple episodes.
BrokenEye3: To be fair, it does *sound* like an insult. It just took a couple thousand years to figure out how to make it one.
iamelkabong: On my throwaway/ naughty account…
I one time was driving in an upperclass neighborhood, and there was this guy in a fancy Ferrari or some shit like that, and he was driving like a complete moron. Going slow, weaving into oncoming traffic, classic older rich guy using his phone behavior. This goes on for a while and it is infuriating as I am on my lunch break, short on time, and am already fed up with society. Anyway, a second lane opens up and as I drive by I see his window is down and I shout “NIMROD!” then I notice the dude is black, then I realize how much that could sound like another “N word”.
Shittyshittshit: It was actually daffy duck who said this not bugs. It’s in the episode what makes daffy duck.
LifeSaTripp: And thus, the urban dictionary was born.
Hooplah73: I suppose it could also be in reference to the Enigma Variation ‘Nimrod’, that Edward Elgar had written for a close friend and inspiration who’s surname was Jaeger, the German word for Hunter.
Perhaps it was a compliment after all?
DaDaJonesss: Dox fuddle through the membrane, squeeze through the shotgun
TheRealMoofoo: At least [X-Men gets it.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nimrod_(comics)
SonOfTK421: Do people not read the books with which they align their moral compass?
poonjam: People used to bitch ab reposts. They must have all died from over exertion
goodfornthn: Did he just slay the mighty donkey?
glockRonin23: TIL that “Kush” is from the bible.
cubssux: the power of bugs bunny
snoutpower: I have a client named Nimrod and Everytime I call him on the phone, the other guys in the office laugh. Kind of funny, kind of sucks
WithANameLikeThat: Its also my favorite Green Day album and my dog’s name.
The more you know!
meredith_ks: I also follow nim_br 🙂
bark_wahlberg: Also a dude from the X-Men.
Vertriv: If I were a critically acclaimed screenplay writer, I’d just make a Nimrod movie about a badass hunter to re-subvert the meaning.
Then again there’s a reason why I’m not writing scripts for big movies lol. Although it’d be nice to be in a position where you can just have an idea and make it a big thing.
1happyfunball: [FLOYD NIMROD: LAZINESS! THIEVERY!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVnBvjpu5hA)
Codoro: Today I Remembered people are always people no matter what time period.
spockspeare: Wait, so “dipstick” just means someone who knows your oil level?
fogcat5: oh … that explains why the European version of the AWACs airborne radar system is called the Nimrod [1]. As a kid, I thought those British just didn’t know it was an insult/slang. But I was a weird kid.
[1] http://www.nytimes.com/1981/10/11/world/alternative-to-awacs-british-nimrod.html
dansedemorte: Even back then no one read the bible either
GeoffIsOurOnlyHope: Anyone know the name of the short in which Bugs calls him a nimrod for the very first time?
dalyblue: Not to be lame but I read the Old Testament for fun in maybe middle school and this ALWAYS bothered me. Like…how on *earth* did this poor guy’s name come to mean what it does? I’m glad I’ve found some clarity.
bigpoppasweet: Yes BUT:
In “Dante’s Inferno” Nimrod is condemned to the eighth circle of hell for treachery. Here he speaks unintelligible words for eternity, neither understanding nor being understood. This is because he attempted to build the Tower of Babel up to heaven until God destroyed it and fragmented the one language understood by all into the many languages we have now to cause tumult amongst men. Canto XXXI.
So calling a stupid person a Nimrod makes sense.
joeliuzzi: I never would have known.
markkind: Yep. Everyone thought it was just a new word for idiot that they hadn’t heard before because, even though they claim it’s the most important book ever, hardly anyone actually reads the bible.
well_hello2u: Hmmm interesting
MinistryOfSpeling: So kind of like how I called the cop who arrested me for a moving violation while I was doing dishes in my kitchen Supercop. I was comparing him ironically and unflatteringly to Jackie Chan. Makes sense.
yonthickie: It was years before I found this out and discovered why Americans thought it was insulting to call someone a famous hunter/king.
point_nemo_: huh, what a bunch of nimrods.
JTCMuehlenkamp: Who did they think would get the reference? That’s what I wanna know.