goner
Americannoun
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:
Then, just before 11am, as foreign office minister Stephen Doughty stood up in the Commons to answer an urgent question on Mandelson, my emails pinged - and Lord Mandelson was a goner.
From BBC ● Sep. 11, 2025
This incoming family knows nothing of that, but already, their housecat, Cider, feels like a goner.
From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 5, 2024
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
The most recent goner, who gives the book its title, was an investigative journalist.
From Washington Post ● Jul. 9, 2022
She’s beaming at me and I’m really a goner for this girl.
From "The Sun Is Also a Star" by Nicola Yoon
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.
