a. and sb. vulgar. Also looney. [Shortened form of LUNATIC + -Y.] a. adj. Lunatic, crazed, daft, dazed, demented, foolish, silly. b. sb. A lunatic.
1872. B. Harte, Heiress of Red Dog (1879), 93. You’re that looney sort o’ chap that lives alone over on the spit yonder, ain’t ye? Ibid., 96. ‘Looney!’ It was not a nice word. It suggested something less than insanity; something that might happen to a common, unintellectual sort of person.
1883. E. C. Mann, Psychol. Med., 424 (Cent.). His fits were nocturnal, and he had frequent ‘luny spells,’ as he called them, during which he was oblivious to all his surroundings.
1884. St. James’s Gaz., 29 March, 6/2. An excellent system whereby one loony was brought to bear upon another.
1897. Kipling, Captains Courageous, 27. Dad sez loonies can’t shake out a straight yarn.
1900. F. W. Bullen, With Christ at Sea, xiii. 253. I sh’d a ben fair loony long ago.
slang. 1987. The Gazette (Montreal), 4 Sept., C-12/3. The British twopence coin, worth about 5 cents Canadian, seems to have about the same dimensions as the new $1 Canadian ‘loony’ coin. Parking meters in Ottawa, at least, can’t tell the difference.
