Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun Plural form of bootlegger.

Etymologies

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Examples

  • With the remaining troops he moved to a point near Fort MacLeod, a place well named Fort "Whoop-up," which was the headquarters of the bootleggers from the United States.

    The Royal Canadian Mounted Police 1937

  • Americans were so well known as bootleggers, Europeans began referring to them with the Dutch word “Janke,” then slang for pirate, which is today pronounced “Yankee.”

    The Pirate’s Dilemma Matt Mason 2008

  • Nevertheless, I would urgently press upon the attention of the Congress the question whether some amendment of the internal revenue laws might not be of aid in prosecuting those malefactors, known in the Indian country as "bootleggers," who are engaged at once in defrauding the United States Treasury of taxes and, what is far more important, in debauching the Indians by carrying liquors illicitly into territory still completely under Federal jurisdiction.

    State of the Union Address (1790-2001) United States. Presidents.

  • Two hundred soldiers, six or eight liquor shops, -- the number varies from year to year, -- three miles off a native village of perhaps one hundred and fifty souls, and dotting those intervening miles cabins chiefly occupied by "bootleggers" and go-betweens -- that is the Tanana situation in a nutshell.

    Ten Thousand Miles with a Dog Sled A Narrative of Winter Travel in Interior Alaska Hudson Stuck 1891

  • Nevertheless, I would urgently press upon the attention of the Congress the question whether some amendment of the internal revenue laws might not be of aid in prosecuting those malefactors, known in the Indian country as "bootleggers," who are engaged at once in defrauding the United States Treasury of taxes and, what is far more important, in debauching the Indians by carrying liquors illicitly into territory still completely under Federal jurisdiction.

    State of the Union Address Theodore Roosevelt 1888

  • Tackie recalls making trips to New York in the frigid weather selling his mix tapes to most artists 'worst enemy:' bootleggers '.

    Jammin Reggae Archives 2010

  • In those early days of my hip hop listening, I wasn't aware of the concept of "bootleggers", so when the State Fair

    WYDU 2009

  • a fund of amusing stories about "bootleggers" and an "interesting traveller" means a man who has been to Havana and can explain how wet it is.

    My Discovery of England Stephen Leacock 1906

  • People of this type, who are otherwise law-abiding and patriotic and well-intentioned, protect bootleggers and otherwise violate the Volstead Act with the same faith in the justice of their actions that a group of Middle Western Americans would have in evading a law that prohibited them from planting corn . . .

    A Renegade History of the United States Thaddeus Russell 2010

  • During this time, according to Tone, “the American condom trade was fiercely competitive, crowded, and replete with bootleggers.”

    A Renegade History of the United States Thaddeus Russell 2010

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