"Moonbat" is a pejorative political epithet used in United States politics, referring to liberals, progressives, or leftists (especially the far-left), a possible parallel to the pejorative "Wingnut" attributed to American conservatives, and right-wing politics.[1]

Etymology [ edit ]

Descriptions of bat-like people on the Moon were part of the 1835 Great Moon hoax.

A long poem, The Proving of Gennad: A Mythological Romance by Landred Lewis (1890), uses the term "moonbat" to refer to unsound ideas, but not specifically political ones.[2]

The term was used by science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein in the 1947 short story "Space Jockey" as the name of a rocket spacecraft used for the third step of a journey from the Earth to the Moon.[3]

Examples of usage [ edit ]

See also [ edit ]

Notes [ edit ]