goner
Americannoun
-
goners
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of goner
Explanation
A goner is someone or something that can't be saved — it's lost, or doomed. When you know your video game character is about to die, it's clear she's a goner. The informal goner is great for describing a person who's desperate or ill-fated. If you narrowly avoid a bad car accident, you might say, "I thought I was a goner," and if your cat catches a small bird, you can be fairly certain it's a goner. Goner is a colloquial American word that stems from the earlier terms "gone goose" and "gone coon," which have the same meaning.
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
See Examples For:
"The whole family basically thought I was a goner," he wrote.
From BBC ● Oct. 2, 2025
When a tree has 25 or more exit holes, it’s probably a goner, Durbin said.
From Los Angeles Times ● May 28, 2024
The moment Benedick declares he’ll never get married, we know he’s a goner.
From Washington Post ● Mar. 28, 2023
They keep chatting, she asks his age — he’s 34 — and by the time that he drops her off, Lea is a goner and the story is on its way.
From New York Times ● Mar. 2, 2023
“I thought that moth was a goner, for sure.”
From "The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate" by Jacqueline Kelly
Some assumed the fish left behind were goners.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 9, 2026
But once services such as YouTube, Twitter and Instagram came for us, we were goners.
From Washington Post ● Jan. 11, 2023
When Polkinghorne went out to check on her incubated emu eggs after the spring storm caused a power outage, she thought all the unhatched chicks were goners.
From Seattle Times ● May 5, 2022
"When I was in Vietnam, as long as that flag was flying, we were fighting. If there was no flag up there, we were goners, so yea, it means a lot to me."
From Fox News ● Sep. 23, 2021
At this rate we’ll have mass hysteria before too long, and when that happens we’re all goners.
From "Dread Nation" by Justina Ireland
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Get a wordDefinitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
