English

Proper noun

Lone Ranger

1. A hero of westerns who wore a mask.
   • 2000, Gerald Nachman, Raised on Radio, page 200:

     Yet you never tired of the famous fade-out: "Who was that masked man, anyway? ... That was. . . the Lone Ranger!"

2. A solitary, sometimes mysterious or heroic, person.
   • 1992, M. Annette Jaimes, The State of Native America: Genocide, Colonization, and Resistance, page 428:

     The Lone Ranger is always alone in a wilderness he does not quite call home.

   • 2002, Megan Jennaway, Sisters and Lovers: Women and Desire in Bali, page 128:

     This requires them to lead a double life: as Lone Ranger by day, husband and father by night.

   • 2002, David John Lu, Agony of Choice: Matsuoka Yosuke and the Rise and Fall of the Japanese Empire, 1880-1946, page 169:

     While Matsuoka's tendency to act alone, his "lone-ranger" style of diplomacy, served him well in maintaining secrecy, it deprived him of effective staff work […].

See also

• Sloane Ranger
• Tonto