goon

Etymology

Shortened from "gooney," originally a sailor's word for the albatross and other big, clumsy seabirds. By the early 1900s it had shifted to mean "stupid person," and the "hired thug" sense took off in the late 1930s, partly thanks to the brutish comic-strip character Alice the Goon in Popeye.

· First attested 1900

Class of 1900

goon first entered the language around 1900. Other words from the same year: