Lamer

Lame \Lame\ (l[=a]m), a. [Compar. {Lamer} (l[=a]m"[~e]r);
   superl. {Lamest}.] [OE. lame, AS. lama; akin to D. lam, G.
   lahm, OHG., Dan., & Sw. lam, Icel. lami, Russ. lomate to
   break, lomota rheumatism.]
   1.
      (a) Moving with pain or difficulty on account of injury,
          defect, or temporary obstruction of a function; as, a
          lame leg, arm, or muscle.
      (b) To some degree disabled by reason of the imperfect
          action of a limb; crippled; as, a lame man. "Lame of
          one leg." --Arbuthnot. "Lame in both his feet." --2
          Sam. ix. 13. "He fell, and became lame." --2 Sam. iv.
          4.
          [1913 Webster]

   2. Hence, hobbling; limping; inefficient; imperfect; as, a
      lame answer. "A lame endeavor." --Barrow.
      [1913 Webster]

            O, most lame and impotent conclusion! --Shak.
      [1913 Webster]

   {Lame duck}
      (a) (Stock Exchange), a person who can not fulfill his
          contracts. [Cant]
      (b) An elected politician who is completing a term after
          having been defeated at an election; also, an office
          holder who cannot or chooses not to run again for the
          same office; -- So called from the presumed lack of
          political power of one who is soon to be out of
          office.
      (b) Any office holder who is serving out a term after a
          replacement has been selected.
          [1913 Webster +PJC]
    

lamer
 n.

   [originally among Amiga fans]

   1. Synonym for {luser}, not used much by hackers but common among
   {warez d00dz}, crackers, and {phreaker}s. A person who downloads much,
   but who never uploads. (Also known as leecher). Oppose {elite}. Has
   the same connotations of self-conscious elitism that use of {luser}
   does among hackers.

   2. Someone who tries to crack a BBS.

   3. Someone who annoys the sysop or other BBS users -- for instance, by
   posting lots of silly messages, uploading virus-ridden software,
   frequently dropping carrier, etc.

   Crackers also use it to refer to cracker {wannabee}s. In phreak
   culture, a lamer is one who scams codes off others rather than doing
   cracks or really understanding the fundamental concepts. In {warez
   d00dz} culture, where the ability to wave around cracked commercial
   software within days of (or before) release to the commercial market
   is much esteemed, the lamer might try to upload garbage or shareware
   or something incredibly old (old in this context is read as a few
   years to anything older than 3 days). `Lamer' is also much used in the
   IRC world in a similar sense to the above.

   This term seems to have originated in the Commodore-64 scene in the
   mid 1980s. It was popularized among Amiga crackers of the mid-1980s by
   `Lamer Exterminator', the most famous and feared Amiga virus ever,
   which gradually corrupted non-write-protected floppy disks with bad
   sectors. The bad sectors, when looked at, were overwritten with
   repetitions of the string "LAMER!".
    

lamer

   <jargon> A hopelessly clueless {luser}.

   (1997-01-31)