moonstruck

English

Etymology

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

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, The Varieties of Religious Experience, Lectures 4 & 5:
      [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, Arrowsmith, Chapter 21, IV:
      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
The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout#Translations.
Translations to be checked

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 The imported definitions may be significantly out of date, and any more recent senses may be completely missing.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, G. & C. Merriam, 1913.)

This article is issued from Wiktionary. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.