A person or thing that is “played out” or “used up.”
1598. Truly I am but a gone man (Equidem perii).—Bernard’s ‘Terence’ (1607), p. 303. (N.E.D.)
1830. If something isn’t done pretty soon, it’ll be gone goose with us.—Seba Smith, ‘Major Jack Downing,’ p. 44 (1860).
1830. You are a gone goose, friend, said another.—Mass. Spy, July 7.
1840. Dunder und blixem, capting, I was afeard you were a gone coon, and was on the point of shoving off without you.—C. F. Hoffman, ‘Greyslaer,’ ii. 206.
1841. I tell’d ’em you and the boy was gone suckers.—Knick. Mag., xvii. 400 (May).
1843. It’s a gone ninepin, that head o’ his.—Cornelius Mathews, ‘Writings,’ p. 279.
1844. It was conceded by all that the Esperanza, for such was the name of the slaver, was a gone case.—Watmough, ‘Scribblings and Sketches,’ p. 14 (Phila.).
1845. The acquisition of Canada … is put down on all sides as a gone coon.—Mr. Giddings of Ohio in Congress (Farmer).
1845. I tell you, my friend, I ’m a gone coon!—Knick. Mag., xxv. 104 (Feb.).
1845. I thought old Time was about to kick the bucket, and I knowed, if he did, I was a gone sucker.—St. Louis Reveille, Aug. 4.
1848. If I hadn’t hollered jest as I did, I’d been a gone Jona, sure enuff.—W. T. Thompson, ‘Major Jones’s Sketches of Travel,’ p. 161 (Phila.).
1851. I feared that I should lose my way, and then I knew I was a gone sucker.—M. L. Byrn, ‘An Arkansaw Doctor,’ p. 109.
1853. He had pretty much made up his mind he wer a gone coon.—S. A. Hammett (‘Philip Paxton’), ‘A Stray Yankee in Texas,’ p. 135.
1854. [When the King of Terrors] lays his relentless paws upon a pack of you, you are gone coons.—Dow, Jun., ‘Patent Sermons,’ iii. 285.
1856. That he was a gone coon, was his natural reflection. He took for granted that he was to be scalped, hung, and slaughtered.—W. G. Simms, ‘Eutaw,’ p. 435 (N.Y.).
1866. ‘That house is a gone goose’ [in the flood], says Uncle Major, says he.—Seba Smith, ‘’Way Down East,’ p. 329.
