Obsolete A fit of lunacy or madness; a period of frenzy; a crazy or unreasonable freak.
Why woman, your husband is in his olde Lunes againe: […]c. 1597 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merry Wiues of Windsor”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act IV, scene ii], page 54, column 1:
Theſe dangerous, vnſafe Lunes i'th' King, beſhrew them: / He muſt be told on't, and he ſhall[…]c. 1610–1611 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Winters Tale”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene ii], page 283, column 2:
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A mad world this, my friends, a world in its lunes, petty and other; in lunes other than petty now for some time; in petty-lunes, pettilettes, or pantalettes, about these six weeks, ever since when this rampant androgynous Bloomerism first came over from Yankee land.1851 July–December, Thomas Snarlyle, “Bloomerism: A Latter-Day Fragment”, in Punch, volume XXI, page 217:
lune
noun
Etymology From French lune, from Latin luna.
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Geometry, Mathematics, Sciences A concave figure formed by the intersection of the arcs of two circles on a plane, or on a sphere the intersection between two great semicircles.
What he worried about was any eventual convexity, a shrinking, it might be, of the planet itself to some palpable curvature of whatever he would be standing on, so that he would be left sticking out like a projected radius, unsheltered and reeling across the empty lunes of his tiny sphere.1984, Thomas Pynchon, Slow Learner:
Falconry, Hawking, Hobbies, Hunting, Lifestyle A leash for a hawk.
And thenne was he ware of a Faucon came fleynge ouer his hede toward an hyghe elme / and longe lunys aboute her feet / and she flewe vnto the elme to take her perche / the lunys ouer cast aboute a bough / And whanne she wold haue taken her flyghte / she henge by the legges fast / and syre launcelot sawe how he henge1485, Sir Thomas Malory, “xvj”, in Le Morte Darthur, book VI: