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''loon'' ▫ᴱᴺ｜Definition｜1st｜20260813235252-00-⌔

loon - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

Noun

loon (plural loons)

  • (slang) A crazy or deranged person; a lunatic.
    • ✤ An electric fire came next, followed by an umbrella and then a colander. “This bowl will carry no water,” he muttered. “Some loon hath pierced it with holes.”1
    • ✤ What’s it like to be a loon?/I liken it to a balloon2
  • (obsolete) An idler, a lout.
    • ✤ The diuell damne thee blacke, thou cream-fac’d Loone: Where got’ſt thou that Gooſe-looke.3
  • (chiefly Scotland, Ulster) A boy, a lad.
  • (chiefly Scotland) A harlot; mistress.
  • (chiefly Scotland) A simpleton.
  • (Ireland, historical) An English soldier of an expeditionary army in Ireland.
  • (traffic engineering) A round area of pavement that protrudes from one side of a road to accommodate turning vehicles with a wide turning circle.
  • Clipping of balloon.

Noun

loon (plural loons)

  • (US, Canada) Any of various birds, of the order Gaviiformes, of North America and Europe that dive for fish and have a short tail, webbed feet and a yodeling cry.
    • ✤ The Loone is an ill ſhap’d thing like a Cormorant; but that he can neyther goe nor flye; he maketh a noiſe ſometimes like a Sovvgelders horne.4
    • ✤ [O]h, yes! the loon does shriek dreadfully - particularly when there’s fine rain […]5
    • ✤ He came again to her and she said: ‘Run swifter than the deer, be more cunning than the beaver, dive deeper than the loon.’6
    • ✤ And I listened for a voice;—/But my heart was all I heard;/Not a screech-owl, not a loon,/Not a tree-toad said a word.7

Pronunciation

  • IPA: /ˈluːn/
  • Audio (US): 🔊
  • Rhymes: -uːn

Etymology 1

From Middle English louen, lowen (“rascal; rogue”), probably of Middle Dutch or Middle Low German origin. Compare Dutch loen (“simpleton”). Or, related to etymology 2, due to the bird’s loud cry.8 Folk etymology associates it slang-wise with lunatic, though the latter may have influenced it; see loony.

Etymology 2

🖼️ ➺

Of North Germanic origin, from Old Norse lómr (“loon”), ultimately imitative of the bird’s cry, particularly when it’s in danger. Distantly related to lament, probably sharing Proto-Indo-European ﹡leh₂- (expressive root).

Printed 2026-08-13.

(echo:: @ ⌗)

Footnotes

  1. 1971, Richard Carpenter, Catweazle and the Magic Zodiac, Harmondsworth: Puffin Books, page 67: ↩

  2. 1971, Marc Bolan, “Cosmic Dancer”, in Electric Warrior, performed by T. Rex: ↩

  3. c. 1606 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Macbeth”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene iii], page 149: ↩

  4. 1634, William Wood, “Of the Birds and Fowles both of Land and Water”, in New Englands Prospect. A True, Lively, and Experimentall Description of that Part of America, Commonly Called New England; […], London: […] Tho[mas] Cotes, for Iohn Bellamie, […], →OCLC, 1st part, page 31: ↩

  5. 1886, Peter Christen Asbjørnsen, translated by H. L. Brækstad, Folk and Fairy Tales, page 286: ↩

  6. 1903, Zane Grey, Betty Zane, New York, N.Y.: Grosset & Dunlap Publishers, →OCLC: ↩

  7. 1921, Edna St. Vincent Millay, “The Blue-Flag in the Bog”, in Second April ‎: ↩

  8. “loon”, in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, Boston, Mass.: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016, →ISBN. ↩

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