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- The moon in moonbat suggests loony or lunatic, which comes from the Latin word for “moon.” The bat calls up the slang batty and batshit crazy. The phrase was popularized at the end of the 1990s by a libertarian blogger, Perry de Havilland, who referred to political extremists, both left and right, as barking moonbats.
Aug 18, 2011 · Turns out the phrase didn't originate with Hunter S. Thompson, or with Kubrick's Col. "Bat" Guano in Dr. Strangelove. Here are the definitions provided by the OED, along with the earliest citation for each: A worthless or contemptible thing; rubbish, nonsense.
Jan 5, 2021 · What's the origin of Batshit Crazy? The expression was used with the same meaning already back in the early 20 th century, under the form of batty. The term came from the phrase bats in the belfry, which is a bell tower.
Aug 20, 2009 · batshit crazy. A person who is batshit crazy is certifiably nuts. The phrase has origins in the old fashioned term " bats in the belfry." Old churches had a structure at the top called a belfry, which housed the bells.
There is a character in Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove named Colonel “Bat” Guano (1964), an obvious reference to “batshit,” and Hunter S. Thompson used the phrase “batshit insane” in the Fear and Loathing books in the early 1970s.
I believe it's a clever play on the older term for the same thing, 'bats in the belfry', a belfry being the top bit of a bell tower. The idea being that a belfry with lots of bats in it will also have lots of bat shit. Hence 'Bat shit crazy".
Presumably from batty (“crazy”), itself from earlier have bats in one's belfry, from tendency of bats to fly around erratically. Possibly influenced by or derived from apeshit, particularly in phrase go apeshit.
What does the word batshit mean? There are four meanings listed in OED's entry for the word batshit . See ‘Meaning & use’ for definitions, usage, and quotation evidence.
