Definition of: MOONSTRUCK
For much of human history, exposure to the light of the moon, especially the full moon, was believed to cause a wide range of unpleasant mental symptoms, ranging from moodiness to outright insanity. (The full moon was also, of course, known to rile up werewolves and witches.)
So firm was the popular belief in the harmful powers of moonlight that even today we speak colloquially of the deranged as "lunatics," a 13th century term drawn from the Latin word for moon, "luna."
The term "moonstruck," which first appeared in the 17th century, started out meaning roughly the same thing as "lunatic" -- that the person had been "struck" or stunned, scrambled, confused and maddened by exposure to the full moon. The "moonstruck" victim could even, it was said, exhibit dire physical symptoms, such as blindness whenever the moon was full.
But perhaps because fear of the moon and its light were waning by the 19th century, "moonstruck" lost its alarming connotations and came to describe someone who is mildly addled, dazed and confused, not by the moon, but by a romantic infatuation.
Our Moonstruck was delivered Summer 2006.