lunatic meaning: definition, etymology and quotations

lunatic

noun

/ˈluːnətɪk/

Etymology From Middle English lunatik, from Old French lunatique, from Late Latin lunaticus (“moonstruck”), derived from Latin luna (“moon”), the connection stemming from the belief that changes of the moon caused intermittent insanity.

An insane person.

While there are other races (or individuals—heaven forgive me, I am no ethnologist) who think you a criminal or a lunatic unless you carefully plod along from step to step like a hippopotamus out of water.1902, Hilaire Belloc, The Path to Rome:
You may be right I may be crazy Oh, but it just may be a lunatic you're looking for1980 March 7, Billy Joel, “You May Be Right”, in Glass Houses:

Derived terms: lunachick, lunacy, lunatical, lunatic asylum, lunatic fringe, lunatics have taken over the asylum, Lunix, saloonatic

lunatic

adj

/luːˈnætɪk/

Crazed, mad, insane, demented.

Literary, Rare Relating to the Moon; lunar.

As the narrator turns his attention to the moon itself and its Lunatic inhabitants, Heinsius seems to draw on the True History, but is still within the confines of the Icaromenippus.1996, Joel C. Relihan, “Menippus in Antiquity and the Renaissance”, in R. Bracht Branham, Marie-Odile Goulet-Cazé, editors, The Cynics: The Cynic Movement in Antiquity and Its Legacy, Berkeley, C.A. […]: University of California Press, →ISBN, page 269:
That or I might bounce off something I hit and head back out into space, become the light in the eye of some lunatic observer, looking up at the big blue ball and seeing me bang something in their retina.2020, Kim Stanley Robinson, chapter 53, in The Ministry for the Future, New York, N.Y.: Orbit Books, →ISBN, page 235:

Literary, Rare Influenced or affected by the Moon.

This I remember: she was false as the lunatic sea.1956 Summer, David R[ytman] Slavitt, “Partiti da Cotesti che son Morti”, in The Kenyon Review, volume XVIII, number 3, Gambier, O.H.: Kenyon College, →ISSN, →OCLC, page 370:

Synonyms: crazed, insane, mad, demented, maniacal, psychotic
Derived terms: lunatically
Related terms: lunatic soup, de lunatico inquirendo