gone coon
obsolete slang Any person or thing that is in a position of certain death, failure, or ruin. From the image of a raccoon (commonly shortened to "coon") being hunted for its fur. Primarily heard in US. He said his business would be a gone coon if the bank doesn't approve his loan. We'll have to leave him here—he's a gone coon with a wound like that. If you start drowning in open water, you're a gone coon, man.
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms. © 2024 Farlex, Inc, all rights reserved.
gone coon, a
Also,
a gone goose. A person in a hopeless situation, one who is doomed; a
dead duck. For example,
When he passed me, I knew I was a gone goose. These terms have survived such synonyms as
gone chick, gone beaver, gone horse, and
gone gander. Stephen Crane used the first in
The Red Badge of Courage (1894): "I'm a gone coon this first time." [
Slang; early 1800s]
The American Heritage® Dictionary of Idioms by Christine Ammer. Copyright © 2003, 1997 by The Christine Ammer 1992 Trust. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.
a gone coon
a person or thing in desperate straits or as good as dead. US informal Coon in these idioms is an informal abbreviation of raccoon . Raccoons were hunted for their fur, and a gone coon was one that had been cornered so that it could not escape.
Farlex Partner Idioms Dictionary © Farlex 2017