goon
Meanings
- A thug; a usually muscular henchman with little intelligence.
- A hired and paid person who is assigned to terrorize and kill opponents.
- A fool; someone who is silly, stupid, awkward, or outlandish.
- An enforcer or fighter.
- A German guard in a prisoner-of-war camp.
- One hired to legally kidnap a child and forcibly transport them to a boot camp, boarding school, wilderness therapy, or a similar rehabilitation facility.
- Box wine.
- A member of the comedy website Something Awful.
- To act like a goon; to act in an intimidating or aggressive way towards opponents.
- To legally kidnap a child and forcibly transport them to a boot camp, boarding school, wilderness therapy, or a similar rehabilitation facility.
- To masturbate for long periods of time without reaching a climax.
- To masturbate (in general).
- A wine flagon or cask.
- Cheap or inferior cask wine.
- A Sino-Japanese kanji pronunciation layer, considered the first Sino-Japanese kanji reading type used in Japan.
- A surname.
- Alternative letter-case form of goon (“a member of the comedy web site Something Awful”).
Pronunciation
Word forms
Etymology
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *dʰeǵʰ- Proto-Indo-European *-ōm Proto-Indo-European *dʰéǵʰōm Proto-Indo-European *-ō Proto-Indo-European *ǵʰmṓ Proto-Germanic *gumô Proto-West Germanic *gumō Old English guma Middle English gone? English gooney English goon Shortened from gooney, from obsolete gony (“simpleton”), used circa 1580, of unknown origin. Perhaps a familiar term derived from Middle English gone, a variant of gome (“man, person”). Gony was applied by sailors to the albatross and similar big, clumsy birds (circa 1839). The term goon first carried the meaning "stupid person" (circa 1921). Compare Scots goni, guni (“a bogey, bugbear, hobgoblin”), dialectal Swedish gonnar (“elves, goblins”, plural). * Etymology 1, noun sense 1 ("hired thug"; circa 1938) is largely influenced by the comic strip character Alice the Goon from the Popeye series. * Etymology 1, noun sense 3 ("fool") was reinforced by the popular radio program, The Goon Show, starring Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers. * Etymology 1, noun sense 5 ("guard") was influenced by both etymology 1, noun sense 1 and etymology 1, noun sense 3, though not by The Goon Show reference, which arose about 10 years after WWII.