A widely misunderstood joke the Bugs Bunny short A Wild Hare added a definition to the name and word Nimrod.

The name’s origin can be traced back to Genesis where Nimrod is the name of a ruler over the land where the tower of Babel was built. He was cited in genealogy as the son of Cush and grandson of Ham, and great-grandson of Noah. He is referred to as “A mighty one in the earth” (Genesis 10:8) and a “mighty hunter before the Lord” (Genesis 10:9). And the name first appeared as a word with the definition of “hunter.”

The mighty hunter origin is why Bugs Bunny refers to Elmer as Nimrod in the aforementioned short. However, the allusion to the Old Testament figure went over the heads of many. The track-record Bugs and Elmer had at that point as well as the sarcasm made it easy to miss the unexpected reference. Thus, a new definition was born.

As a kid who grew up after this shift in definition, “Nimrod” meaning a dullard had a sort of Cockney Rhyming Slang logic to me: Nim rhymes with dim, rod had me thinking of fluorescent bulb, or something like it, that was supposed to be bright but wasn’t.

Fast forward from my childhood to 1997, Green Day releases the album Nimrod, which pretty much seals its connotation in the US if not all of the English-speaking world.

Shortly after that, while I was in college an expanding my cinematic horizons I learned the name is still common in Hungary, during that time I saw Nimród Antal’s Kontroll, which I highly recommend.

Then some time later, mostly thanks to a meme I was able to trace this story.

The release of Nimrods, a film far better than most road-trip tales, the word’s dual meaning is further cemented but provides many viewing options.

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Nimrods is now available to rent or purchase on digital.