loon

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“
With one hand I pulled a little revolver from my hip pocket, and when the loon was about fifty yards distant, and had begun to sidle around me, I fired: at the flash I saw two webbed feet twinkle in the air, and the loon was gone!

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Definitions (11)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. noun Any of several fish-eating, diving birds of the genus Gavia of northern regions, having a short tail, webbed feet, and a laughlike cry.
  2. noun Informal One who is crazy or deranged.

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (4)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

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Examples (50)

  • His offhand tone annoyed Bandar who snapped back that Wasselthorpe might also be a full-tilt loon, the terms being all too often interchangeable While they argued, Wasselthorpe slipped into slumber, his cheek pressed against the trampled grass. —  Magazine - Fantasy and Science Fiction - [Vol 112] - Issue 02 - February 2007
  • I laughed like a loon, my hair billowing out around my head, and then he let me go and caught me, just inches away from the floor, and then he did it again and again, until at last I was standing on the floor and the music was over. —  Charlaine Harris - Southern Vamp 07 - All Together Dead
  • The loon which is messenger to the Four Brothers of the Night flew swiftly and whispered your name in my ear. —  Conan -- The Stories from Weird Tales (1932-1936)
  • I've dressed up like a loon -- as you can see to the left -- for this worthy cause. —  FlickFilosopher.com
  • This loon, an "ethics professor" (meaning you can dismiss virtually anything he says as pure garbage), wants Obama to set up a youth corps. —  Eidelblog
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Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (4)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (2)

  1. Perhaps alteration of dialectal loom, guillemot, diver, from Old Norse lōmr.
  2. Probably from loon1 (from its loud cry) and influenced by lunatic.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. Also loun, lown, lowne; from Middle English lowne (also in adjective lownishe: see loonish, lownish), apparently from Old Dutch loen, a stupid fellow, possibly a variant or corruption of *loem (cf. Middle English lowmyshe, for lownyshe), connected with lome, dull, slow, = Old High German luomi, luami, lōmi, Middle High German lüeme, faint, weary, drooping, mild (Middle High German luomen, lomen, droop), German lumen, loose, lax, later D. lummel = German lümmel = Danish lömmel = Swedish lymmel, a loon, lubber (cf. English lummox). These words are prob. from the same ult. source as lame.
  2. A corruption of loom.
 

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/lun/
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