Today, to be called a bookworm implies focus, curiosity, and a love of learning. While traces of its negative past still linger in some corners, the word has largely been reclaimed by those who find joy and meaning in books.

Language has a peculiar way of elevating what it once condemned. The word bookworm is a prime example: today, it conjures the image of a thoughtful, solitary, curious, and deeply immersed in the written word. Yet, its earliest appearances in English suggest anything but admiration. For much of its linguistic life, bookworm was used not to praise a love of learning, but to criticize what many saw as its excesses.

The word bookworm first entered the English language in the 1500s, during a period when literacy was growing but still far from universal. At the time, to be called a bookworm was no compliment. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary and the Oxford English Dictionary, the term initially described someone thought to be socially disconnected, idle, or overly absorbed in books to the point of uselessness. It was an epithet reserved for those perceived as wasting time in impractical study, often with little to show for it beyond thinness and poor posture.

In this context, bookworm did not describe a refined scholar, but rather a recluse whose relentless reading was more vice than virtue. The word drew implicit comparisons to other social outcasts of the period. For example , some texts compared bookworms to maltworms—a 16th-century term for alcoholics—emphasizing the idea of compulsive consumption. Where one drank too much beer, the other devoured too many books, with equal suspicion.

Even the intellectual appetite that defined the bookworm was considered indiscriminate and shallow. Bookworms, critics claimed, would read anything: signs in shop windows, outdated newspapers, or cheap pamphlets. This was not a pursuit of knowledge, but a kind of mental gluttony. The image that persisted was not of someone curious, but of someone consumed by curiosity.

Public Perception in the 19th and Early 20th Century

By the 19th and early 20th centuries, the stereotype of the bookworm had become both gendered and visual. A 1907 column in The Baltimore Sun described two varieties: the “lady bookworm” with her “inquisitive nose and eager eye,” and the male equivalent, pale and frail, with books as his only source of comfort. Neither depiction was flattering. In a culture that prized action, sociability, and practical engagement with the world, the bookworm was seen as passive and detached.

Notably, the term bookworm was also being used more literally around this time—to refer to actual insects that damaged books. It wasn’t until the 1600s that the word began to describe beetles and moths known to burrow into binding glue and paper. This natural reference likely reinforced the term’s negative metaphorical meaning: like an insect eating through knowledge without understanding it, the bookworm was accused of reading without reflection.

A Gradual Reassessment

Despite its long history as a slur, the meaning of bookworm began to soften in the mid-20th century. This shift coincided with changing cultural values around intellectualism and introversion. Where once the solitary reader was viewed with suspicion, modern societies began to appreciate concentration, academic ambition, and the power of lifelong learning.

One early sign of this change came from a surprising source: a high school student named Miles Wyatt, writing in a 1947 Australian newspaper. Wyatt defended the bookworm not as an eccentric, but as someone with a natural, harmless inclination toward learning. He argued that the bookworm, far from being a “despised” figure, was simply someone who preferred reflection over noise, and curiosity over conformity.

His argument foreshadowed the slow rehabilitation of the term in public discourse.
By the late 20th century, bookworms had fully transformed. It had become a badge of honor that’s now often used self-descriptively by readers and learners. There’s also been rise of once-derogatory labels like geek and nerd—terms that have also undergone rebranding—mirrored this shift.