moonman

• Moonman, moon man, moon-man, Moon Man, Moon-Man

moon +‎ man

moonman (plural moonmen)

1. Synonym of man in the moon (“face perceived in the moon, or the character imagined for it”).
   • 1916, John Morrison, “Towser and the Moonman”, in Youth's Companion‎, volume 90, page 279:

     Towser lifts his nose and howls / Toward the moonman, far and dim; / But the moonman only scowls, / For no dog can frighten him.

   • 1961, George Ross Ridge, Under the Georgia Sun: Poems‎, Wake-Brook House, retrieved 2023-05-10, page 20:

     I sat within a cedar grove alone / And watched the moonman walk across the hill

2. (especially mid-19th to mid-20th centuries, fiction) An inhabitant of the Moon (Earth's moon), especially an indigenous humanoid one as opposed to a human one.

   Synonym: Lunite § Synonyms

   • 1863, William George Caldcleugh, “Story of Chico Capaac, or the Man in the Moon (the Story of the Moonmen)”, in Eastern Tales‎, James Challen and Son, retrieved 2023-05-10, page 230:

     In this manner did I discourse with the Moonmen while taking my repast; after which they told me, if I had no objection, that they intended taking me to Moontown, to introduce me to their king […]

   • 1954, Catherine Lucile Moore, Northwest of Earth‎, Gnome Press, retrieved 2023-05-10, page 54:

     On the floor the Moonman's body shivered again.

   • 1958 March, William Leavitt, “Man in space”, in Air Force Magazine‎, retrieved 2023-05-10, page 122:

     As the first moonmen worked to set up their rudimentary base, supply ships would have to be sent periodically with additional provisions for more permanent materials for the eventual large lunar base. Meanwhile, the moonmen would continue to live in their pressurized domes. As supplies accumulated, construction of the permanent base would begin.