loony
1 Americannoun
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loonies
plural
adjective
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lunatic; insane
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foolish or ridiculous
noun
Other Word Forms
Derived Forms
Inflected Forms
Nouns
Etymology
Origin of loony
Explanation
Someone who's loony is nutty or wacky — it's a slang term for "crazy." Your loony aunt Mabel might prefer wearing a teddy bear costume when she goes to the grocery store. Loony is an informal, derogatory term for mentally ill, but it can also mean silly or outrageous. You could say, "My parents are loony — they call me three times a day and are always sending me photos of their little dog dressed in doll clothes," or talk about the loony story you read for your book group. Loony is an American-coined word, short for lunatic and also referencing the cry of the bird called a loon.
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:
Still, the loony nature of the entire concept is such that you can imagine a fan base forming, like mold in a flooded basement.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 7, 2026
Things didn’t really get loony until the tournament began.
From Los Angeles Times ● Dec. 23, 2025
Owens brings a blend of loony energy and sincere malevolence that Cooper can’t quite muster.
From Salon ● Jul. 7, 2025
And I don’t think his successor will match those heights, even if he or she isn’t quite as loony as we’re speculating.
From Slate ● Mar. 2, 2024
“Certainly. No matter how much I disagree with Mr. Lemoncello and his loony ideas about libraries, I totally respect his right to stock his shelves with whatever books he chooses—and our right to read them.”
From "Mr. Lemoncello's Library Olympics" by Chris Grabenstein
Everyone thinks they can do it: players, parents, students, boosters, administrators, TV yappers, dogs, cats, radio loonies, and sports columnists at financial newspapers.
From The Wall Street Journal ● Oct. 27, 2025
And if we’re not, what can we say to politely change the way people see our child, and autism as a whole, without sounding like preachy loonies?
From Slate ● Aug. 27, 2019
Her father John Barrymore, of the Barrymore acting dynasty – “The great line of loonies from which I come,” as she puts it – wasn’t around much.
From The Guardian ● Jan. 29, 2017
In 2006 Mr. Cameron dismissed the party as mostly a bunch of “fruitcakes and loonies and closet racists” but UKIP’s ability to win over his disgruntled supporters is proving an increasing headache.
From New York Times ● Nov. 30, 2012
Well, them two loonies scratched along till, one day, Penn's church he'd belonged to—the Moravians—found out where he wuz drifted an' layin', an' wrote to Uncle Salters.
From Captains Courageous by Rudyard Kipling
It’s possible it’d be even loonier than what we have now.
From Seattle Times ● Oct. 7, 2023
What we knew was already so nuts that it's hard to believe it could be any loonier --- but it is.
From Salon ● Feb. 2, 2022
And a delightful closing-credits sequence full of Badu outtakes gives us a glimpse of the looser, loonier comedy we could’ve more fully enjoyed if the film weren’t so committed to its dousing-the-spitfire formula.
From Slate ● Feb. 7, 2019
Yes, in its loonier moments this movie is exactly that awesome, although I can't decide whether it's setting out to be the "Showgirls" of medieval-fairy tale movies or simply getting there by accident.
From Salon ● Mar. 10, 2011
Three quick thoughts emerged: it's a bit early in the day for that, he's loonier than a luger, and we'll not see skeleton in the Olympics anytime soon.
From Time Magazine Archive
She added that "one of the looniest proposals on the table is that you can actually cut down forests to turn into furniture" - with companies claiming they store carbon.
From BBC ● Dec. 8, 2022
“The looniest guys you’ll talk to in wrestling are really about winning, and all else doesn’t matter.”
From Washington Post ● Apr. 9, 2016
And in perhaps his looniest promise, he can have Noah living at Yaddo by the end of the week — for as long as he wants!
From New York Times ● Dec. 13, 2015
The idea of Emmerich, one of Hollywood’s looniest big-budget auteurs, taking on a project this certifiably bananas was somehow thrilling.
From Slate ● Oct. 28, 2011
“We had to pick the looniest of the bunch, didn’t we?”
From "The Way to Rio Luna" by Zoraida Cordova
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.
