> goon
> 
> goon gun. slang. Perhaps a shortened form of dial. gooney (gony 1)
> `a booby, a simpleton'; but more immediately from the name of a
> subhuman creature called Alice the Goon in a popular cartoon series
> by E. C. Segar (1894-1938), American cartoonist.
> 
> 1. A stolid, dull, or stupid person. orig. U.S.
> 
>    * 1921 F. L. Allen in Harper's Mag. Dec. 121/1 (title) The Goon
>      and his Style.
> 
>    * 1921 F. L. Allen in Harper's Mag. Dec. 121/1 (title 121/2 )A
>      goon is a person with a heavy touch as distinguished from a
>      jigger, who has a light touch. While jiggers look on life with
>      a genial eye, goons take a more stolid and literal view.
> 
>    * 1938 Life 14 Nov. 6/3 The word `Goon' was first popularized by
>      college students who used it to mean any stupid person. Labor
>      union lingo has given it a second meaning: a tough or thug.
>      Rival unions and factions speak of another's `Goon Squads'.
> 
>    * 1938 R. Chandler Trouble is my Business (1950) 80 Some goon
>      here plays chess. You?
> 
>    * 1940 R. Stout Over My Dead Body iv. 57 You may be a couple of
>      goons... But I'm asking you a damn straight question.
> 
>    * 1942 D. Powell Time to be Born (1943) vii. 175 You sit there
>      gawping at him like some little goon.
> 
>    * 1945 Partridge Dict. R.A.F. Slang 30 Goon, a fool, very stupid
>      fellow; a gaper.
> 
>    * 1951 J. Wyndham Day of Triffids viii. 154 The goon started to
>      argue.
> 
>    * 1957 R. M. Wardle Oliver Goldsmith i. 3 It was Goldsmith's
>      misfortune that he was a jigger fallen among goons.
> 
>    * 1957 R. M. Wardle Oliver Goldsmith 5 William Cooke was a goon.
>      Apparently it never entered his head that a man-especially an
>      Irishman-might have preferred, for the joke's sake, to use a
>      word which didn't make sense.
> 
>    * 1959 S. Clark Puma's Claw xii. 135 There, you goon. You'll bump
>      into them if you don't watch out.
> 
> 2. A person hired (esp. by racketeers) to terrorize workers; a thug.
> orig. U.S.
> 
>    * 1938 Amer. Speech XIII. 178 In the Pacific Northwest we hear
>      the word goon on every hand. Locally a goon is a member of a
>      labor-union's beef-squad; that is, a person of imposing
>      physique and inferior moral and mental qualities who can be
>      depended on to cow and frighten recalcitrant union-members.
> 
>    * 1938 [see sense 1 above].
> 
>    * 1940 Chicago Tribune 28 Jan. 1/8 `Goon' is a term applied to
>      hired sluggers used in labor troubles... A typical goon murder
>      was the recent killing in Chicago of..a garage-man involved in
>      a union dispute.
> 
>    * 1959 [see fink sb.2].
> 
>    * 1969 New Yorker 20 Dec. 88/3 Many so-called `goons'-civilian
>      terrorists, sometimes dressed in Constabulary uniforms-took
>      over in many provinces.
> 
>    * 1971 Blitz (Bombay) 6 Mar. 13/4 Attempts on his life by goons
>      allegedly employed by the Calcutta police authorities.
> 
>    * 1971 It 2-16 June 5/1 Heath orders Habershon of Barnet CID to
>      `turn London over'. And he does exactly that..with 500 goons
>      and a score of specially trained dogs.
> 
> 3. A nickname given by British and U.S. prisoners of war to their
> German guards in the war of 1939-45. Also transf. So
> 
> goon-up!
> 
> goon-up!, a warning cry.
> 
>    * 1945 G. Morgan Only Ghosts can Live 140, I think it was an
>      Australian who first called the Germans `Goons'.
> 
>    * 1945 G. Morgan Only Ghosts can Live, 140, The cry, `Goon up!'
>      remained in many camps a warning of the approach of the
>      Detaining Power.
> 
>    * 1948 Amer. Speech XXIII. 218 The word for German was invariably
>      goon among airmen, American and British alike... It was also
>      used as the adjective part of a compound noun,..e.g. a goon-box
>      was one of the guard towers along the fences around the camp.
> 
>    * 1952 E. F. Davies Illyrian Venture xi. 218 At midnight the Goon
>      Postern (German sentry) was astounded to see a large naked form
>      flying three times round the courtyard in a temperature of 25
>      degrees of frost.
> 
>    * 1962 V. Nabokov Pale Fire 55 Morning finds us marching to the
>      wall Under the direction of some goon Political, some uniformed
>      baboon.
> 
> 4. (With capital initial.) Any one of the members of the cast of a
> popular British radio comedy series,
> 
> The Goon Show
> 
> The Goon Show, noted for its crazy and absurd brand of humour.
> 
>    * 1951 Radio Times 25 May 18/2 (heading) Crazy people... Radio's
>      Own Crazy Gang `The Goons'.
> 
>    * 1951 Radio Times 25 May 18/2 (heading 18/3 )Spike Milligan..has
>      compiled the `Goon Show' material.
> 
>    * 1951 [see below s.v. *goonery].
> 
>    * 1958 Observer 18 May 14/4 The department of jokes, only a
>      shadow of its former self without the Goons.
> 
>    * 1958 Listener 25 Sept. 481/2 Lovers of the Goon Shows.
> 
>    * 1962 A. Nisbett Technique Sound Studio x. 173 Just about the
>      ultimate in this line of effects was reached when in a `Goon
>      Show' the script demanded `a 16-ton, 112-horsepower, 6-litre,
>      brassbound electric racing organ fitted with a cardboard
>      warhead'.
> 
>    * 1970 Sun 28 July 3/5 The Goons are returning to radio-after 10
>      years in cold storage.
> 
>    * 1971 S. Milligan in D. Nathan Laughtermakers ii. 49 Prisoners
>      of war called their German guards goons but I got it from
>      Popeye. There was a creature called the Goon which had nothing
>      in the face at all except hair... I liked the word and we
>      called it The Goons.
> 
> 5. attrib. and Comb., as (sense 2)
> 
> goon squad
> 
> goon squad,
> 
> tactics
> 
> tactics; (sense 3)
> 
> goon-baiting
> 
> goon-baiting vbl. sb.;
> 
> goon box
> 
> goon box, a guard tower at a P.O.W. camp; (sense 4)
> 
> goon-like
> 
> goon-like,
> 
> goon-type
> 
> -type adjs. Also
> 
> goonskin
> 
> goonskin (see quot. 1943).
> 
>    * 1962 Times 12 Oct. 15/4 `Goon-baiting', which was the favourite
>      occupation of the prisoners.
> 
>    * 1948 Goon-box [see sense 3 above].
> 
>    * 1956 A. Crawley Escape from Germany 31 Watch towers..covering
>      the interior of the camp. To the prisoners they were known as
>      `goon boxes'.
> 
>    * 1963 Times 21 Feb. 16/7 Mr Horst Buchholz, whose mixture of
>      American and Indian accents is given an even more goon-like
>      quality by the over-used attempt to inject local colour with
>      the tag-phrase `isn't it?'
> 
>    * 1943 C. H. Ward-Jackson Piece of Cake 32 Goonskin, observer's
>      flying suit and parachute harness made in one piece.
> 
>    * 1957 Rawnsley & Wright Night Fighter 37 The fur-lined leather
>      trousers and jacket known to us as `Goon Skins'.
> 
>    * 1937 Nation 4 Sept. 239/2 The goon squad, as it is commonly
>      called, consists of at least twenty picked thugs and
>      ex-convicts.
> 
>    * 1951 E. Paul Springtime in Paris xi. 202 The Existentialists
>      allege that the Communists send goon squads to the district, as
>      a part of their anti-American, anti-tourist campaign.
> 
>    * 1962 K. Orvis Damned & Destroyed ix. 62 I'm lucky the
>      goon-squad haven't back-handed me into a lane and kicked me to
>      death.
> 
>    * 1967 N. Mailer Cannibals & Christians i. 32 He talked
>      of..`strong-arm and goon tactics'.
> 
>    * 1967 Listener 10 Aug. 187/3 And I'm Sorry, I'll Read That
>      Again, a happy reminder of happy Goon-type days.
> 
> Hence
> 
> goonery
> 
> 'goonery, a foolish or absurd kind of humour typical of a Goon
> (sense 4);
> 
> goonish
> 
> 'goonish a., of, pertaining to, or resembling a goon (senses 1 and
> 4).
> 
>    * 1921 F. L. Allen in Harper's Mag. Dec. 122/1 A goonish style is
>      one that reads as if it were the work of a goon. It is thick
>      and heavy.
> 
>    * 1951 Picture Post 16 June 34 Four young comics-Michael Bentine,
>      Harry Secombe, Spike Milligan and Peter Sellers-have at last
>      got together in a radio programme. In `Crazy People' they put
>      across their favoured kind of humour. This they call
>      `goonery'... General opinion was that if you like crazy,
>      pun-dizzy, logic-smashing comedy that doesn't despise your
>      intelligence, you'll like the Goons.
> 
>    * 1958 Vogue Jan. 49 George Devine and Joan Plowright..made this
>      extraordinary play a startlingly moving piece of theatre and
>      gave the dialogue..a quality of abstract goonery.
> 
>    * 1959 Listener 12 Mar. 485/2 An hour..which had some elements of
>      Goonery.
> 
>    * 1959 Sunday Times 29 Mar. 17/5 Photographs by Inge Morath that
>      have that air of solemnity suppressing a giggle that has become
>      known, in this country at least, as `goonish'.
> 
>    * 1960 Design July 23/1 If you can force yourself past the first
>      few sentences the Goonish mixture is oddly funny.
> 
>    * 1968 Times 27 Feb. 3/8 This is a victory for Spike Milligan and
>      goonery.