The Story Behind the Term Nimrod

Nimrod is a character described in the Bible's Book of Genesis as a "mighty hunter before the Lord." I'm not a hunter, therefore I can't be a Nimrod. Why has the term Nimrod come to mean a dolt or a fool? It's all because of that famous user and abuser of the English language, Bugs Bunny.

Bugs used Nimrod to refer to his adversary, poor old Elmer Fudd. Bugs was being facetious. Calling Elmer Fudd, the hapless hunter, Nimrod, was like calling your duffer golf buddy Tiger or the barely competent quarterback of your flag football team Peyton. The trouble was that a lot of people didn't get the joke, but they still thought it was funny because it was a funny name. Nimrod.

They didn't get the joke because it was a bit of New York Jewish humor. It's obvious to any Bugs Bunny fan that he is a New Yorker. Mel Blanc, the voice of Bugs, said that Bugs Bunny has a Flatbush accent, an equal blend of the Bronx and Brooklyn dialects.

Some even claim that Bugs is Jewish : Bugs Bunny is Jewish

Anybody familiar with New York Jewish culture and folklore would have "got" the reference to Nimrod. That excludes a lot of people. In these people's minds, Nimrod must mean stupid because that's the way Bugs said it.

Bug's Bunny's writers might have avoided this mix-up by using the name of a more well known hunter. But as I thought about this, I realized that there really aren't any famous hunters in popular culture that would fit the bill. Teddy Roosevelt was a well known hunter but more distinguished as a president. Ernest Hemingway was more esteemed as a writer. Frank Buck was a well known hunter at the time but his motto was "bring 'em back alive" and that would be incongruous with Elmer Fudd's shotgun.

So Nimrod it was. I'm sure the writer had no idea that he was about to take a name, Nimrod, that for over 4,000 years had meant "a great hunter"; and turn it into a word meaning a dolt. This was also a testament to the popularity of Bugs Bunny and his influence on the culture.

If you would like to hear Bugs using the word Nimrod click here.

Here's Calvin from "Calvin and Hobbes" using the phrase "Grade A Nimrod".

If someone were to call you a Nimrod, you could choose to be obscure and say, "Thanks, but I'm not a great hunter," or you could respond in kind with "Will ya get a load of this maroon?"