Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • adjective Enamored in a silly or sentimental way.
  • adjective Feebly sentimental; gushy.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • Being in love; sentimentally fond of (some one): with upon or on.
  • Soft; silly; weak-minded; specifically, weakly or foolishly fond; sentimental.
  • noun A stupid or silly fellow; a noodle; a ninny; a simpleton; especially, a sillily fond sentimental fellow. Also spoon.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • Same as spooney.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • adjective Enamored in a silly or sentimental way.
  • adjective Feebly sentimental; gushy.
  • noun informal A foolish, simple, or silly person.
  • noun informal A foolishly amorous person.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • When she left the city, he dispatched ridiculously "spoony" telegrams to her in Baltimore, and in his daily letters indulged in a maudlin sentimentality that might have inspired the envy of a sighing

    Danger! A True History of a Great City's Wiles and Temptations The Veil Lifted, and Light Thrown on Crime and its Causes, and Criminals and their Haunts. Facts and Disclosures. Abraham H. Hummel 1887

  • The publication of "Uncle Tom's Cabin" in 1852 had aroused a great deal of curiosity about the South, and Olmsted, as an alternative to the "spoony fancy pictures" then in circulation, promised to supply "matter of fact matter."

    Meaning In a Meadow Michael J. Lewis 2011

  • Twain the former Confederate ranger did not like the change; he considered it a “spoony, slobbering, summer-complaint of a name.”

    LIGHTING OUT FOR THE TERRITORY JR. ROY MORRIS 2010

  • And here he was, getting spoony round my wife, whom he had affected to despise once on a day for her lowly origins.

    The Sky Writer Geoff Barbanell 2010

  • I didn't trust you an inch, then; Kralta did, though, and she's no fool, even if she is spoony about you.

    Watershed 2010

  • On one hand, there was an exciting variety about Caprice's boudoir behaviour, the merry concubine performing for the fun of it; on t'other, my horsey charmer was wildly passionate and spoony about me - and there was more of her.

    Watershed 2010

  • Twain the former Confederate ranger did not like the change; he considered it a “spoony, slobbering, summer-complaint of a name.”

    LIGHTING OUT FOR THE TERRITORY JR. ROY MORRIS 2010

  • Vanity would have tempted me to take Hutton's judgment that she was dead spoony on me and had done him in for that reason, if she had not since handed me my marching orders.

    Watershed 2010

  • That, and I wanted to be able to say “spoony,” to see what weird searches would be sent my way.

    Charles | Miette's Bedtime Story Podcast 2006

  • The wordy war lasted fully half an hour, and terribly distressed one spoony

    The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton 2006

Comments

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  • "You spoony bard!"

    December 12, 2006

  • Puts one in mind of "spoonerism", except spoonerism derives from the name of

    October 22, 2009

  • (adj.) unduly sentimental, silly, foolish

    November 7, 2009

  • This word was chosen as Wordnik word of the day.

    November 11, 2009

  • Our passions are gentled by age,

    So sorrow scars over our rage,

    An obsession once loony

    Becomes merely spoony

    And the pedant retires a sage.

    February 23, 2014