: a person preoccupied with arcane details or procedures in a specialized field
Synonyms
Examples of wonk in a Sentence
the policy wonks in the government
the candidate has an army of policy wonks ready to write for him a position paper on virtually any issue
Recent Examples on the Web
Advertisement ‘An independent thinker’ Like his predecessor, Choi comes to the chief’s office with a reputation as a policy wonk steeped in the mind-numbing details of running the LAPD, an organization of more than 10,000 employees that is always under an intense media microscope.
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Libor Jany, Los Angeles Times, 11 Apr. 2024
Ask the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which is a bunch of economic wonks from various countries who get to work in a nice, leafy part of Paris.
—John Cassidy, The New Yorker, 5 Mar. 2024
See all Example Sentences for wonk 
Libor Jany, Los Angeles Times, 11 Apr. 2024
Ask the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, which is a bunch of economic wonks from various countries who get to work in a nice, leafy part of Paris.
—John Cassidy, The New Yorker, 5 Mar. 2024
See all Example Sentences for wonk
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'wonk.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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Cite this Entry
“Wonk.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/wonk. Accessed 29 May. 2024.
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