goon
Plural: goons
Noun
- A foolish or awkward person; a hired thug.
- an awkward stupid person
- an aggressive and violent young criminal
- 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.
- A member of the comedy website Something Awful.
- 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.
Verb
- 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 for long periods of time without reaching a climax.
- To masturbate.
Examples
- He sometimes played the GOON, intentionally blocking his opponent’s potential plays.
- The Buddhist term 権化 is read as gonge, using the kanji's goon readings.
Origin / 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).
* Sense 1 ("hired thug"; circa 1938) is largely influenced by the comic strip character Alice the Goon from the Popeye series.
* Sense 3 ("fool") was reinforced by the popular radio program, The Goon Show, starring Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers.
* Sense 5 ("guard") was influenced by both sense 1 and sense 3, though not by The Goon Show reference, which arose about 10 years after WWII.
Synonyms
clod, gawk, hood, hoodlum, lout, lubber, lummox, lump, oaf, punk, strong-armer, stumblebum, thug, tough, toughie, fap, masturbate
Scrabble Score: 5
goon: valid Scrabble (US) TWL Wordgoon: valid Scrabble Word in Merriam-Webster MW Dictionary
goon: valid Scrabble Word in International Collins CSW Dictionary