different between moonbat vs mooncalf

English

Etymology

From moon +? bat, first used in the 1940s by the science-fiction writer Robert Heinlein, then used in the term “barking moonbat” coined in 1999 by Perry de Havilland of “The Libertarian Samizdata”, a right-libertarian weblog. This originally referred to both left-wing and right-wing crazy people. Sometimes wrongly claimed to be a corruption of Monbiot (from George Monbiot, British environmentalist and Guardian columnist).

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?mu?n?bæt/

Noun

moonbat (plural moonbats)

1. (informal, derogatory) A liberal (someone with a left-wing ideology).

   Synonyms: (derogatory) leftard, (derogatory) libtard

   Coordinate term: wing nut

   • For more quotations using this term, see Citations:moonbat.

Derived terms

• moonbattery
• moonbatty

Further reading

• The Samizdata glossary

References

English

Alternative forms

• moon-calf

Etymology

From moon +? calf, after a superstition that the moon caused abnormal fetal development.

Pronunciation

• (UK) IPA^(key): /?mu?nk??f/

Noun

mooncalf (plural mooncalves)

1. (now rare) An abnormal mass within the uterus; a false conception. [from 16th c.]
   • c. 1611, William Shakespeare, The Tempest, Act II, Scene 2,^[1]

     Thou art very Trinculo indeed! How camest thou to be the siege of this moon-calf? Can he vent Trinculos?

2. A poorly-conceived idea or plan. [from 17th c.]
3. A dreamer, someone absent-minded or distracted; a fool, simpleton. [from 17th c.]
   • 1902, John Kendrick Bangs, Olympian Nights, New York: Harper & Bros., Chapter 10, p. 185,^[2]

     “ […] you’re a jobbernowl and a doodle, a maundering mooncalf and a blockheaded numps, a gaby and a loon; you’re a Hatter!” I shrieked the last epithet.

   • 1957, Ogden Nash, “Come On In, The Senility Is Fine” in You Can’t Get There From Here, Boston: Little, Brown & Co., p. 66,^[3]

     But I can think of no one but a mooncalf or a gaby

     Who would trust their own child to raise a baby.

   • 1978, Lawrence Durrell, Livia, Faber & Faber, 1992 (Avignon Quintet), p. 463,

     He slipped it softly onto her unresisting finger and, like the unwise moncalf he was, kissed it.

Related terms

• moon
• moonstruck
• moonbat