moonbat

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): /ˈmuːnˌbæt/

Noun

moonbat (plural moonbats)

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

   Synonyms: (derogatory) leftard, (derogatory) libtard

   Coordinate term: wing nut

   • 2005, Michele Malkin, Unhinged: Exposing Liberals Gone Wild, Washington, DC: Regnery, →ISBN, page 108:

     So, what do moonbat professors do when they're not attacking military recruiters, the Bush administration, cameramen, and College Republicans?

   • 2006 May 11, Eric Boehlert, Lapdogs: How the Press Lay Down for the Bush White House, New York: Free Press, →ISBN, page 216:

     As nervous Bush supporters watched the president's approval rating slide, they unleashed their wrath on Sheehan, labeling the mourning mom a “crazy,” “anti-Semite,” “left-wing moonbat,” “crackpot” whose behavior bordered on “treasonous” and who was nothing more than a “hysterical noncombatant.”

   • 2009 October 13, Steve Eubanks, Downforce, New York: Harper, →ISBN, page 255:

     Your job is to separate the media from the moonbats before some industrious cub reporter starts looking into our land deal.

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

Adjective

moonbat (comparative more moonbat, superlative most moonbat)

1. (informal, derogatory, politics) Of ideas absurd or obviously untruthful.
   • 20204: The Bulwark
     • Trump, who said last month at the Republican National Convention that he would never again retell the story of the attempt on his life “because it’s too painful to tell,” told that story with relish. He expounded at length on his usual moonbat fables about how countries around the world are emptying their prisons and mental institutions to send their convicts and lunatics to the United States.

Derived terms

• moonbattery
• moonbatty

Further reading

• The Samizdata glossary