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:
Now, he’s a goner, delivering Sir Keir Starmer a headache rather than a handshake.
From BBC ● Jul. 16, 2024
This incoming family knows nothing of that, but already, their housecat, Cider, feels like a goner.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 5, 2024
It’s a goner, he thought — far too damaged to even think about trying to repair.
From Washington Post ● Nov. 6, 2022
Then when the camera lingered on his departure from Dragonstone, until the little boy on his little dragon faded into the night, I was sure he was a goner.
From New York Times ● Oct. 23, 2022
I don’t know how a person can resist fried foods, because I’m a goner every time I catch a whiff of them.
From "I Am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter" by Erika L. Sánchez
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
If he, rather than anyone else, saw us, we’d be goners.
From "Tradition" by Brendan Kiely
Definitions 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.
