Many of you will already be familiar with the word geek. In International English, it refers to someone who is intelligent, but not fashionable or popular, or someone who is very interested in a particular subject and knows a lot about it (e.g. a computer geek).

There is another meaning of the word geek that has been used in Australian English since the early 20th century (Australian National University) and this is ‘a look’. It’s most often used in the phrase ‘to have’ (or ‘take’) a geek at. For example, you can say (see the video at the end of the post):

Have a geek at that! = Look at that!

or

Take a geek at his hairdo. = Look at his hairdo.

The use of ‘geek’ in this way is not as popular now as it used to be, but I think it’s useful to be aware of alternative meanings of words that you already know.