The Oxford Shorter Oxford dictionary says of 'loon'
1, A rogue, scamp ; an idler. A strumpet, concubine.
2. A man of low condition.
3. A boor, lout , clown
4. A boy, lad, youth
Shakespeare's Macbeth called a frightened servant a 'cream faced loon', which suggests 3 or 4, but I'm puzzled by the contemporary 'swivel eyed loon'.
Is 'swivel eyed' meant to assert that the eyes can moved, rather than being fixed in one particular basilisk stare, or does it mean they are constrained to move with only one degree of freedom as opposed to ranging freely over the landscape, and which of senses 1 to 4 best fits Conservative activists ?
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My guess is that it was used in the sense of your 2 or 3. It has probably also been conflated with 'loony'.
Yes, Sasha undoubtedly has the right of it. My guess is that the majority of people who use it now do not even know that there is a word "loon" that does *not* derive from "lunatic". Thank you, Socialist thought-leaders for your work on education!
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