Definition
The word "Moonie" is derived from the name of Sun Myung Moon, the founder and leader of the Unification Church. The 2002 edition of The World Book Dictionary does not note a negative connotation, defining it simply as: "a follower of Sun Myung Moon"; nor does the 1999 edition of the Webster's II New College Dictionary, which defines it as "a member of the Unification Church established and headed by Sun Myung Moon." The 2009 Random House Dictionary states the word is offensive, and the 2009 Compact Oxford English Dictionary defines it as derogatory in nature. The Dictionary of the Modern Politics of Japan describes it as a colloquial term to refer to a member of the Unification Church.
The New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (2005), The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (2007), and The Routledge Dictionary of Modern American Slang and Unconventional English (2008) give a secondary meaning as "any blind, unthinking, unquestioning follower of a philosophy."
The word "Moonie" is also a family name in the United Kingdom. The town of Moonie, Queensland in Australia was founded in 1840. In more recent times it has also been used to refer to fans of the anime character Sailor Moon. See also: Moonie (disambiguation).
Read more about this topic: Moonie (nickname)
Famous quotes containing the word definition:
“The very definition of the real becomes: that of which it is possible to give an equivalent reproduction.... The real is not only what can be reproduced, but that which is always already reproduced. The hyperreal.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“Mothers often are too easily intimidated by their children’s negative reactions...When the child cries or is unhappy, the mother reads this as meaning that she is a failure. This is why it is so important for a mother to know...that the process of growing up involves by definition things that her child is not going to like. Her job is not to create a bed of roses, but to help him learn how to pick his way through the thorns.”
—Elaine Heffner (20th century)
“Although there is no universal agreement as to a definition of life, its biological manifestations are generally considered to be organization, metabolism, growth, irritability, adaptation, and reproduction.”
—The Columbia Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition, the first sentence of the article on “life” (based on wording in the First Edition, 1935)