goon
Pluralgoons
Pluralgoons
- 1A thug, typically a hired one employed to intimidate, hurt, or even kill people for someone else.
A hulking goon blocked the doorway until his boss gave a nod.
The gang leader's goons were all muscle and no brains, and they fell for the oldest trick in the book.
- 2A foolish or stupid person whose behavior is silly, clumsy, or bizarre.
Stop acting like a goon and help me carry these bags.
With his long face and floppy hat, he looked like a lovable goon from an old comedy.
UsageCan be affectionate rather than insulting: a lovable goon.
Note
Here the goon is a clown rather than a heavy, and this sense stays closest to the simpleton behind the word. Margery Allingham's Mr. Campion, with "those long clown lines in his pale face", is called a natural goon in The China Governess.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 3 facts
- The foolish-person sense preserves the meaning of the proposed source word gooney. en.wikipedia.org
- Margery Allingham wrote The China Governess. fadedpage.com
- The quoted facial description and natural goon refer to Campion; they occur in narration reflecting Julia's impression. fadedpage.com
- 3In ice hockey, a disparaging name for a team's enforcer or fighter.
The coach called up a goon from the minors to protect his star center.
Fans booed when the visiting team's goon started another fight in the second period.
UsageEnforcer is the neutral hockey word; goon is what rival fans and critics call such a player.
Similarenforcer
Note
Hockey's neutral word for this player is enforcer, someone whose job is to protect teammates by fighting and hitting hard; goon is what rival fans and critics call him. In Warren Zevon's song "Hit Somebody!" (2002), a scout promises that his team will always find a place for one.
- 4A participant in the online community of the humor website Something Awful.
As a longtime goon, he still checks the Something Awful forums every morning.
A group of Something Awful goons organized a charity drive in a single weekend.
Less common meanings
- 5In ice hockey, to play like a goon, using rough and intimidating tactics against opponents.
The visitors tried to goon our best players with late hits all night.
Down three goals, the home team gooned it up, and the game turned into a brawl.
UsageTwo patterns: a team goons it up (plays rough), or goons another team (targets its players).
Similarintimidate, bully
- 6Australian informal: cheap wine sold in a cask, or a cask or flagon of it.
We spent our last summer at uni drinking goon on the back verandah.
A cask of goon from the bottle shop was all the backpackers could afford.
UsageFor the wine, no a before goon: drink goon, a box of goon.
Similarplonk
Note
It names cask wine, sold in cardboard boxes with a bag inside, and it carries a joke about class, since goon is what students, backpackers and bogans drink when bottled wine would cost too much.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Cask wine is packaged in cardboard boxes containing a bag. en.wikipedia.org
- 7Slang: to masturbate, especially for a long time while holding off climax.
The reporter interviewed men who goon for hours at a stretch.
On a recovery forum, one user asked how to stop gooning to porn until dawn.
Note
It is recent Internet slang, and its origin is unclear: it may have grown out of the fool sense or the thug sense. It brings its own small vocabulary, gooners for those who do it and a goon cave for the setting, and it belongs to frank online talk rather than general use.
Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 2 facts
- The sexual sense belongs to relatively recent Internet slang, documented since the early 2000s. en.wikipedia.org
- The origin is uncertain, with derivation from the fool or thug senses proposed. en.wiktionary.org
- 8A person hired to seize a child, legally but by force, and take them to a boot camp, boarding school, wilderness therapy program or similar facility.
Two goons woke her at four in the morning and drove her to a wilderness camp three states away.
Her parents paid a goon to escort her brother to a boarding school for troubled teens.
Note
It is a name given from the receiving end: teenagers taken to wilderness programs and boot camps call the hired strangers goons, whatever those strangers turn out to be like. Owen Jenney told The New York Times in 2016 that his goons were "really nice guys, actually", but the word keeps its menace because the pickup is sudden and forced.
Checked 30 Oct 2026 · 3 facts
- The young people subjected to transport call their hired escorts goons. kidsoverprofits.org
- A 2016 New York Times article attributes the exact words “really nice guys, actually” to Owen Jenney, describing his escorts. en.wiktionary.org
- The transport described can involve an unexpected nighttime pickup and force. theguardian.com
- 9To seize a child, legally but by force, and take them to a boot camp, boarding school, wilderness therapy program or similar facility.
He was gooned at sixteen and spent eight months at a camp in the desert.
Some parents still pay companies to goon their teenagers in the middle of the night.
UsageMost often passive: he was gooned, she got gooned.
Note
Newspapers still tend to print it as "gooned", marked off as someone else's word, a sign that it is new and that they are borrowing the teenagers' own term for what the hired escorts do.
Checked 2 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- Getting gooned is the teenagers’ own term for being taken by hired transporters. psychologytoday.com
- 10A German soldier assigned to guard captives in a prisoner-of-war camp.
- 11A layer of Sino-Japanese kanji pronunciations, considered the earliest type of Sino-Japanese reading used in Japan.
Showing meanings only.
Practice
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Origins
Shortened from gooney, from obsolete gony ("simpleton", around 1580), of unknown origin, perhaps from Middle English gone, a variant of gome ("man, person"); sailors later applied gony to the albatross and similar big, clumsy birds. Goon first meant "stupid person" around 1921; the "hired thug" meaning (around 1938) was largely influenced by Alice the Goon from the Popeye comic strip, and the "fool" meaning was reinforced by the radio program The Goon Show.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 7 facts
- Goon is shortened from gooney, from obsolete gony meaning simpleton, attested around 1580 and of unknown origin. en.wiktionary.org
- A possible source is Middle English gone, a variant of gome meaning man or person. en.wiktionary.org
- Sailors later applied gony to albatrosses and similar large, clumsy birds. en.wiktionary.org
- Goon first meant stupid person around 1921. en.wiktionary.org
- The hired-thug meaning dates from around 1938. en.wikipedia.org
- Alice the Goon from the Popeye comic strip largely influenced the hired-thug meaning. en.wiktionary.org
- The radio program The Goon Show reinforced the fool meaning. en.wiktionary.org
One guess is that it began as a slang diminutive of flagon. Another links it to goom in Aboriginal English.
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 2 facts
- One proposed origin of goon is a slang diminutive of flagon. en.wiktionary.org
- Another proposed origin links goon to Aboriginal English goom. en.wiktionary.org
Possibly derived from the first goon, either from its meaning "a fool; a stupid person" or from its meaning "a thug".
Checked 1 Nov 2026 · 1 fact
- A possible origin is the first goon, meaning either a fool or a thug. en.wiktionary.org