If someone is a goner, they are soon going to die, fall, be caught, or be finished — there is almost no hope left. It is informal, a bit grim and a bit funny, the kind of thing friends say, not doctors on a form. A sick bird that will not recover, a player whose game is already lost, a person the police have surrounded: each can be a goner. It comes from gone plus -er, from around 1850: a person who is already gone, or as good as gone. Though actually, it does not mean someone who has left the room or gone away on a trip. The person is still here; their chance is what has gone.