A
slang noun describing an
accidental act of
greatness, achieved usually through an act of great
stupidity.
Context: "I have pulled a Homer."
The term derives from
The Simpsons, in which the character
Homer Simpson must avert a
nuclear disaster. Being completely
incompetent as a
safety technician at the
nuclear power plant in which he works, he simply presses a few buttons at random via the time-honored method of "eenie meenie miney moe". He averts the disaster, and is hailed a
national hero. When it is made known that his actions were guesses, he is shamed, and the term is coined across the nation (both
fictionally and in
reality, as
The Simpsons is no doubt one of the most quoted
television shows of all time). At the end of the episode, a
basketball player accidentally misses a shot by a wide margin, but through some series of remarkable bounces it makes it into the hoop. He declares that he has "pulled a Homer".