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:
"He was a real loner," said one man, who asked not to be named.
From Barron's ● Oct. 16, 2026
For the wistful, lovelorn loner, it’s an imperative reminder that being attached at the hip can still be isolating, no matter how much two people think alike.
From Salon ● Sep. 28, 2026
Carol Baxter, 64, gave D'Wit a job designing a website for her lucrative shower mat business and soon took the loner under her wing.
From BBC ● Aug. 21, 2026
Since then, despite Jeselnik’s self-proclaimed loner status, Fitzgerald and Jeselnik have struck up a friendship.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 5, 2026
They were well-equipped men with an organization to back up their actions, and he himself was a loner with one stupid deputy.
From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols
For someone whose notoriety has twice become inseparable from who he’s married to, Pitt’s choice to play gruff loners feels noticeably calculated, keeping an arm’s distance between his work and the audience.
From Salon ● Oct. 9, 2026
The stereotype of today’s teenagers as anxious loners hunched over their phones is limiting and inaccurate, she said, as four fellow volunteers nodded in agreement.
From Los Angeles Times ● Aug. 16, 2025
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
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
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