Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
Date "LAMER" was first used in popular English literature: sometime before 1861. (references) |
| Domain | Definition |
Computing | Lamer n.[originally among Amiga fans] 1. Synonym for luser, not used much by hackers but common among warez d00dz, crackers, and phreakers. A person who downloads much, but who never uploads. (Also known as `leecher'). Oppose elite. Has the same connotations of self-conscious elitism that use of luser does among hackers. 2. Someone who tries to crack a BBS. 3. Someone who annoys the sysop or other BBS users - for instance, by posting lots of silly messages, uploading virus-ridden software, frequently dropping carrier, etc. Crackers also use it to refer to cracker wannabees. In phreak culture, a lamer is one who scams codes off others rather than doing cracks or really understanding the fundamental concepts. In warez d00dz culture, where the ability to wave around cracked commercial software within days of (or before) release to the commercial market is much esteemed, the lamer might try to upload garbage or shareware or something incredibly old (old in this context is read as a few years to anything older than 3 days). `Lamer' is also much used in the IRC world in a similar sense to the above. This term originated among Amiga crackers of the mid-1980s. It was popularized there by `Lamer Exterminator', the most famous and feared Amiga virus ever, which gradually corrupted non-write-protected floppy disks with bad sectors. The bad sectors, when looked at, were overwritten with repetitions of the string `LAMER!'. Source: Jargon File. |
Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
(From Wikipedia, the free Encyclopedia)
This term is thought to originate in skateboarding slang, since being lame (i.e. paralyzed or otherwise "stiff in the body") may be dangerous or fatal in the sport. It does not imply that the person in question is actually paralyzed; they are simply thought to be bad at skateboarding. The term came into more general use, applied to anyone thought to be "lame," either physically or (more often) intellectually.
With the rise of electronic bulletin board systems, some bulletin board users may have begun using skateboard slang in application to users of these systems. A lamer was thus a term applied to incompetent users of bulletin board systems. This may have originated as far back as on the first bulletin boards run on TRS-80 and Apple II computers. The opposite of lamers were the leet.
In the subculture of the home computer era of Commodore 64, Amiga, Atari ST and the like in the 1980s, lamer was the standard name for anyone who had a larger mouth than skills. Typically this included "programmers" writing demos using demomaker software.
When applied to users of the internet, in particular users of IRC, newsgroups, mailing lists, or other electronically-mediated communication, the term "lamer" may mean one or more of the following:
Internet context
External links
Source: adapted by the editor from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia under a copyleft GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL) from the article "Lamer."
Crosswords: LAMER |
| Non-English Usage: "LAMER" is also a word in the following language with English translations in parentheses. Spanish (lap, lick). |
| "LAMER" is generally used as an adjective (comparative) -- approximately 66.67% of the time. "LAMER" is used about 3 times out of a sample of 100 million words spoken or written in English. Its rank is based on over 700,000 words used in the English language. Some parts-of-speech are not covered due to the samples used by the British National Corpus. (note: percents less than one-hundredth of one percent have been omitted) |
| Parts of Speech | Percent | Usage per 100 Million Words | Rank in English |
| Adjective (comparative) | 66.67% | 2 | 245,945 |
| Noun (proper) | 33.33% | 1 | 339,140 |
| Total | 100.00% | 3 | N/A |
Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits.
| The following table summarizes the usage of "LAMER" based on a population census conducted in the United States. Ranks and frequencies are based on all names reported and classified. |
| Name | Usage/Gender | Usage per 100 million Persons | Rank in USA |
| Lamer | Last name | 300 | 25,414 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from several corpora; see credits. | |||
| The following statistics estimate the number of searches per day across the major English-language search engines as identified by various trade publications. Hyperlinks lead to commercial use of the expression at Amazon.com. |
| Expression | Frequency per Day |
lamer | 54 |
clitoris el lamer | 12 |
lamer pie | 4 |
de esclavos fetichismo lamer pie | 3 |
creme de lamer | 3 |
crest form lamer pachypodium | 2 |
cream lamer moisturizing | 2 |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. | |
| Language | Translations for "LAMER"; alternative meanings/domain in parentheses. | ||||
Chinese | æ¯"较瘸. (various references) | ||||
German | lahmer. (various references) | ||||
Korean | 불구 (Lamest). (various references) | ||||
Pig Latin | amerlay | ||||
Derivations | |
Words ending with "LAMER": blamer, flamer, inflamer. (additional references) | |
Words containing "LAMER": blamers, flamers, inflamers. (additional references) | |
| |
"LAMER" is suggested in spellcheckers for the following: alher, almar, almeh, Almer, Almere, alner, amer, glamer, jamer, Klamer, laber, Laer, Laimer, Lakme, lamag, Lamair, Lamark, lamber, lamea, lamec, Lamel, Lamen, lameo, lamers, lamet, lamey, lamler, Lammar, lamme, lammer, lamor, lamper, laner, lanor, Lanre, Lanser, laper, larem, larme, Lemeur, Lemmer, Limer, limir, llamar, lomar, lsme, Ludmer, lumar, lumer. (additional references) | |
| Source: compiled by the editor, based on several corpora (additional references). | |
| # of Phoneme Matches | Pronunciation | Word(s) rhyming with "LAMER" (pronounced lā"mer) |
| 4 | l ā" m er | disclaimer, flamer. |
| 3 | -ā" m er | framer, Gamer, namer, tamer. |
Source: compiled by the editor (additional references); see credits. | ||
Scrabble® Enable2K-Verified Anagrams | |
Direct Anagrams: realm. | |
| Words within the letters "a-e-l-m-r" | |
-1 letter: alme, earl, lame, lear, male, mare, marl, meal, merl, rale, real, ream. | |
-2 letters: ale, are, arm, ear, elm, era, lam, lar, lea, mae, mar, mel, ram, rem. | |
-3 letters: ae, al, am, ar, el, em, er, la, ma, me, re. | |
| Words containing the letters "a-e-l-m-r" | |
+1 letter: almner, ambler, ampler, armlet, blamer, calmer, dermal, flamer, lamber, mailer, malgre, marble, marcel, marled, marvel, mauler, medlar, morale, palmer, ramble, realms, remail, tramel. | |
+2 letters: alarmed, almemar, almners, almoner, amblers, armhole, armless, armlets, armlike, balmier, blamers, bramble, cameral, caramel, ceramal, claimer, clamber, clammer, clamper, earldom, emerald, empaler, femoral, flamers, flamier, gambler, gambrel, gleamer, glomera, gomeral, gremial, humeral, impaler, impearl, lambers, lambert, lambier, lampers, lamprey, lamster, lempira, loamier, mailers, malmier, maltier, mandrel, mangler, manlier, marbled, marbler, marbles, marcels, marlier, marline, marlite, martlet, marvels, maulers, mealier, medlars, mineral, miracle, morales, morulae, numeral, palmers, palmier, premeal, rambled, rambler, rambles, ramilie, rampole, realism, reclaim, reclame, remails, removal, sampler, serumal, slammer, smaller, templar, thermal, tramell, tramels, trammel, trample. | |
| Source: compiled by the editor from various references; see credits. SCRABBLE® is a registered trademark. All intellectual property rights in and to the game are owned in the U.S.A and Canada by Hasbro Inc., and throughout the rest of the world by J.W. Spear & Sons Limited of Maidenhead, Berkshire, England, a subsidiary of Mattel Inc. Mattel and Spear are not affiliated with Hasbro. | |
Hexadecimal (or equivalents, 770AD-1900s) (references)4C 41 4D 45 52 |
| Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519; backwards) (references)
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| American Sign Language (origins from 1620-1817 in Italy and, especially, France) (references)
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| Semaphore (1791, in France) (references)
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| Braille (1829, in France) (references)
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Morse Code (1836) (references).-.. .- -- . .-. |
| Dancing Men (Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, 1903) (references)
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Binary Code (1918-1938, probably earlier) (references)01001100 01000001 01001101 01000101 01010010 |
HTML Code (1990) (references)L A M E R |
ISO 10646 (1991-1993) (references)004C 0041 004D 0045 0052 |
| British Sign Language (Fingerspelling, BSL; 1992, British Deaf Association Dictionary of British Sign Language) (references)
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Encryption (beginner's substitution cypher): (references)4635473952 |
| 1. Definition 2. Crosswords 3. Usage Frequency 4. Names: Frequency | 5. Expressions: Internet 6. Translations: Modern 7. Derivations 8. Rhymes | 9. Anagrams 10. Orthography 11. Bibliography |
Copyright © Philip M. Parker, INSEAD. Terms of Use.
