goner

/'gɔnə/

Thân thiện

A man realizes he is a goner as the boat begins to sink.

Definition

1. Noun:
   • A person who is doomed or certain to die, fail, or be destroyed: "goner" refers to someone in a hopeless situation with no chance of recovery or success.
   • Someone in desperate, inescapable trouble: It describes a person facing inevitable ruin or a terrible outcome.

Usage

• The word "goner" is informal and often used in spoken English. It emphasizes a final, irreversible state. It is typically used as a predicate noun after a form of "to be" (e.g., , ).
• It can refer to a person, but is also commonly applied to objects or plans that are irreparably broken or doomed to fail.

Examples

• Noun:
  • When the engine failed in the middle of the ocean, he knew he was a goner.
  • If the boss finds out about this mistake, my career is a goner.
  • That old car is a goner; it's not worth fixing.

Advanced Usage

• "to be a goner": This is the standard idiomatic construction. It signifies that the subject is finished or doomed.
  • Once the virus infected the central system, the entire network was a goner.
• Used to express a point of no return in a narrative or conversation.
  • As soon as he saw the test questions, he thought, "I'm a goner."

Variants and Related Words

• Gone (adj): No longer present; departed. Also used informally to mean "doomed" or "dead" (e.g., ).
• Doomed (adj): Likely to have an unfortunate and inescapable outcome; a more formal synonym.

Synonyms

• Doomed person: Someone destined for death or failure.
• Toast (slang): Someone or something that is finished or ruined (e.g., ).
• Dead meat (slang): In serious trouble, likely to be punished or defeated.
• Finished: At the end of usefulness or life; ruined.

Idioms and Phrases

• A goner: The primary idiom is the word itself used in this fixed phrase.
  • With no water in the desert, any traveler would be a goner.
• While not a phrasal verb, the concept is often linked to the phrase "done for," which has a very similar meaning (e.g., ).

Học thuật

Noun

1. a person in desperate straits; someone doomed
   • I'm a goner if this plan doesn't work
   • one mistake and you're toast

Từ đồng nghĩa

• toast