or loun, lown, subs. (old: now recognised).—A lout; a varlet; a rogue.

1

  c. 1500.  Babees Book [E.E.T.S.], 291.

        And take it backe with manlike cheere,
  not like a rusticke LOWNE.

2

  15[?].  Old Ballad (quoted in Othello, ii. 3, 1608), ‘King Stephen.’ With that he called the tailor LOWN.

3

  1602.  DEKKER, The Honest Whore, Pt. II., in Wks. (1873), ii. 167.

        The sturdy Begger, and the lazy LOWNE,
Gets here hard hands, or lac’d Correction.

4

  1606.  SHAKESPEARE, Macbeth, v. 3. ii. The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced LOON.

5

  c. 1696.  B. E., A New Dictionary of the Canting Crew, s.v. LOONSLATT … A false LOON, a true Scotchman, or Knave of any Nation.

6

  1697.  VANBRUGH, The Provoked Wife, iii. 2.

        Then away John Thompson ran,
And I trow he ran with speed;
But before he had run his length,
The false LOON had done the deed.

7

  1725.  A New Canting Dictionary, s.v.

8

  1771.  FOOTE, The Maid of Bath, iii. 2. I got acquainted with Maister Foote, the play-actor: I will get him to bring the filthy LOON on the stage.

9

  1785.  GROSE, A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, s.v.

10

  1798.  COLERIDGE, The Ancient Mariner, i. Hold-off; unhand me, gray-haired LOON.

11

  1822.  SCOTT, The Fortunes of Nigel, xxx. It might be worth your lordship’s while to have the LOON sent to a barber-surgeon’s to learn some needful scantling of anatomy.

12

  TO PLAY THE LOON, verb. phr. (Scots’).—To play the whore.

13

  1568.  R. SEMPILL, Ballates (ed. 1878), p. 232. ‘Being in ward for PLAYING OF THE LOUN with every ane list geif hir half a croun’ [Title].

14

  c. 1776.  HERD, Ancient and Modern Scottish Songs, ii. 7.

        I am o’er low to be your bride,
  Your LOWN I’ll never be, Sir.

15

  17[?].  Old Scots Ballad [quoted by BURNS], ‘My Wife’s a Wanton Wee Thing.’ She PLAY’D THE LOON or she was married.

16

  c. 1802–5.  Minstrelsy Border, ii. 75.

        I trow some may has PLAID THE LOWN,
And fled her ain countree.

17