lurker

English

Etymology

From lurk +‎ -er, agent suffix.

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /ˈlɜː.kə/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /ˈlɝ.kɚ/
• Rhymes: -ɜː(ɹ)kə(ɹ)

• Audio (US):

  (file)

Noun

lurker (plural lurkers)

1. One who lurks.
   • 1860 December – 1861 August, Charles Dickens, chapter XL, in Great Expectations […], volume III, London: Chapman and Hall, […], published October 1861, →OCLC, page 3:

     It troubled me that there should have been a lurker on the stairs, on that night of all nights in the year, and I asked the watchman, on the chance of eliciting some hopeful explanation as I handed him a dram at the door, whether he had admitted at his gate any gentleman who had perceptibly been dining out?

2. (Internet slang) A user who observes a community rather than participating; someone who reads or takes advantage of content on a website, newsgroup, etc. but does not contribute.

   Antonym: poster

   • 2013, Richard Davis, Politics Online: Blogs, Chatrooms, and Discussion Groups in American Democracy, Routledge, →ISBN, page 92:

     However, less than half of lurkers went online that often. Those who post also are more likely than lurkers to use the Internet for both work and pleasure. Posters use the Internet to communicate more with others than lurkers do.

   • 2025 July 2, Lisa Bonos, Danielle Abril, “No one likes meetings. They’re sending their AI note takers instead.”, in The Washington Post‎^[1], →ISSN, archived from the original on 2025-07-02:

     It’s not unusual for people to join video calls with their camera off and microphone muted, but such lurkers can at least be called upon to speak.

3. (archaic, UK, dialect) A small fishing-boat.
4. (obsolete slang, UK) An impostor; a quack.
   • 1851, Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor; […], volume I (The London Street-folk. Book the First.), London: [George Woodfall], →OCLC, page 219:

     In every large town sham official documents, with crests, seals, and signatures, can be got for half-a-crown. Armed with these, the patterer becomes a ‘lurker,’—that is, an impostor; his papers certify any and every ‘ill that flesh is heir to.’

Derived terms

• lurkership
• photolurker

Translations

someone who lurks

• Bulgarian: please add this translation if you can
• Danish: lurer
• Finnish: väijyjä
• French: rôdeur (fr) m, rôdeuse (fr) f
• German: Beobachter (de) m, Lauerer m
• Latin: insidiātor m
• Spanish: mirón (es) m, merodeador (es) m, intruso (es) m

user who observes rather than participates

• Bulgarian: please add this translation if you can
• Chinese: 潛水 / 潜水 (zh) (qiánshuǐ, literally “diver”)
• Finnish: lurkkaaja, seurailija (fi)
• German: Lurker (de) m, passiver Zuschauer m, Beobachter (de) m
• Japanese: ROM (romu)
• Swedish: lurkare c

References

• William Dwight Whitney, Benjamin E[li] Smith, editors (1911), “lurker”, in The Century Dictionary […], New York, N.Y.: The Century Co., →OCLC.