loner
Americannoun
-
loners
plural
noun
Other Word Forms
Noun Inflected Forms
Etymology
Origin of loner
Explanation
A loner is someone who prefers being alone to spending time with other people. If you're a loner, you'd rather take a walk in the woods by yourself than go to a party. An extreme kind of loner is a hermit, a person who lives far from society, completely alone, and doesn't interact with anyone. Other loners are simply introverts, people who often need a break from socializing and enjoy spending time on their own. Loner seems to have appeared in the 1940s, originally in "Life" magazine's description of baseball player Ted Williams as "something of a loner (who) refuses to pal around with his teammates."
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 book’s throughline is her friendship with Bill, an academic loner whose meticulous work in the field caught her attention.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 24, 2026
The Daily Mail also recounts the details of the suspect in Widdecombe's murder, describing him as a "loner" who "left his house with a pole".
From BBC ● Jul. 13, 2026
What if the destruction of your planet left you with a permanent case of agonized alienation, and you became a weird, antisocial loner who hung out in bars drinking alone?
From The Wall Street Journal ● Jun. 25, 2026
One part of his letter struck me as both moving and marvelous: “Since I’m a loner, I don’t have any really close friends, either.”
From MarketWatch ● Jun. 20, 2026
While Jimmie had been very social and outgoing, Jim was a bit bashful, a loner, very quiet, and liked to read.
From "Reaching for the Moon" by Katherine Johnson
Following the attacks, Sir Keir Starmer said Britain faced a new threat from "extreme violence carried out by loners, misfits, young men in their bedrooms".
From BBC ● Mar. 12, 2025
But I found evidence that supports his story where so many loners bare their innermost thoughts: the internet.
From Salon ● Jan. 7, 2025
They’re renowned loners, with males occupying territories of up to 500 square miles.
From Los Angeles Times ● Mar. 11, 2024
Ecologists had long assumed snakes are antisocial loners that hang out together only for core functions such as mating and hibernation.
From Science Magazine ● Dec. 15, 2023
Enormous ingenuity is apparent with some of the loners in placing the water supply higher than the unit and connecting it with plastic pipe so that a gravity flow is insured.
From "Travels with Charley in Search of America" by John Steinbeck
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.
