Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. (also gonzoid) eccentric, bizarre, extraordinary, groundbreaking; esp. in comb. gonzo journalism, a form of extreme ‘New Journalism’, in which reporters, rather than taking the typical distanced, neutral position, interpolate their thoughts, emotions and actions into the story.

1971		H.S. Thompson in Rolling Stone 11 Nov. 38/4: But what was the story? Nobody had bothered to say. So we would have to drum it up on our own. Free Enterprise. The American Dream. Horatio Alger gone mad on drugs in Las Vegas. Do it now: pure Gonzo journalism.
1983		G. Tate ‘Bad Brains’ in Flyboy in the Buttermilk (1992) 23: Bassman Darryl’s gonzo Segovian intro.
1993		K. Lette Foetal Attraction (1994) 200: You’re so, I don’t know, totally gonzo.
1999		Indep. on Sun. Culture 10 Oct. 8: For all their gonzoid glamour, the modern world simply would not have let them carry on.
2000		Indep. Rev. 4 Feb. 13: The gonzo example of writers Hunter S. Thompson and Norman Mailer convinced him to live everything he wrote about.
2006		[Observer review in front page] L. Theroux Call of the Weird n.p.: All-American weirdness was Louis’s journalistic turf and [...] reportage that was more geek than gonzo.
2017		Tablet 9 Jan. 🌐 Aggressively masculine-to-the-point-of-misogynistic leftists whose politics mix the nihilistic gonzo sensibility of Hunter S. Thompson with the narcissistic machismo of Andreas Baader.

2. out of control.

1999

N. Cohn Yes We Have No 59: I was totally gonzo.

3. crazy about.

2001

Week (US) 15 June 8: I was gonzo over riding.

4. psychotic, crazy.

1983		S. King Christine 249: Buddy was still looking at him, smiling that hard, gonzo smile.
1987		‘Joe Bob Briggs’ Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In 13: The Reaper turned gonzo and knifed her in the stomach.
2016		Times Times2 16 Dec. 🌐 [Kanye West’s] self-important rush to be the sole gonzo saviour granted the ear of Trump.

5. in the sex industry, unrestrained, extreme.

2001

Guardian Weekend 17 Mar. 9: Gonzo porno is also known as ‘wall-to-wall’, It shows you people fucking without concerning itself why they’re fucking [...] Gonzo porno is gonzo: way out there.