moonstruck

English

Etymology

moon +‎ struck. Compare German Low German maansüchtig, German mondsüchtig.

Pronunciation
  • Audio (US)(file)

Adjective

moonstruck (comparative more moonstruck, superlative most moonstruck)

  1. (obsolete) Crazy or insane when affected by the phases of the Moon.
  2. (by extension) Showing irrational behaviour, especially of a romantic or sentimental nature.
    • 1902, William James, “Lectures 4 & 5”, in The Varieties of Religious Experience […] ‎, London: Longmans, Green & Co.:
      [W]e can also overlook the verbiage of a good deal of the mind-cure literature, some of which is so moonstruck with optimism and so vaguely expressed that an academically trained intellect finds it almost impossible to read it at all.
    • 1925, Sinclair Lewis, “21, IV”, in Arrowsmith:
      The full moon was spacious now behind the maples. The seedy Pickerbaugh domain was enchanted […] and over all the world was the proper witchery of moonstruck love.
  3. (obsolete) Made sick, or (like fishes) unsuitable for food, by the supposed influence of the Moon.

Synonyms

Translations
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Part or all of this entry has been imported from the 1913 edition of Webster’s Dictionary, which is now free of copyright and hence in the public domain. The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.
(See the entry for “moonstruck”, in Webster’s Revised Unabridged Dictionary, Springfield, Mass.: G. & C. Merriam, 1913, →OCLC.)

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