Definitions
from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.
- noun Moonlight.
- noun Informal Foolish talk or thought; nonsense.
- noun Illegally distilled whiskey.
- intransitive verb To distill and sell liquor illegally.
from The Century Dictionary.
- noun The shining or light of the moon.
- noun Figuratively (as light without heat), show without substance or reality: pretense; empty show; fiction: as, that's all moonshine.
- noun A month.
- noun A dish of poached eggs served with a sauce.
- noun Smuggled spirits: so called as being brought in or taken away at night.
- Illuminated by the moon.
- Nocturnal.
- Empty; trivial.
from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.
- noun The light of the moon.
- noun Hence, show without substance or reality.
- noun rare A month.
- noun obsolete A preparation of eggs for food.
- noun Dial. Eng., & Colloq. or Slang, U. S. Liquor smuggled or illicitly distilled, especially liquor distilled illegally in rural parts of the southern U. S.
- adjective rare Moonlight.
- adjective Empty; trivial; idle.
- adjective Dial. Eng., & Colloq. or Slang, U. S. Designating, or pertaining to, illicit liquor.
from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.
- noun literally The light of the moon;
moonlight . - noun Illegally distilled
liquor , so named because much of the manufacturing process often is conducted without artificial light at night when the moon is shining. - noun colloquial
nonsense - noun mathematics A branch of pure mathematics relating the monster group to an invariant of
elliptic functions ; see monstrous moonshine.
from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.
- noun whiskey illegally distilled from a corn mash
- verb distill (alcohol) illegally; produce moonshine
- noun the light of the Moon
Etymologies
Sorry, no etymologies found.
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Examples
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John Boy Walton --- stole moonshine from the Baldwin Sisters 'still.
What's in a name? 2008
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John Boy Walton --- stole moonshine from the Baldwin Sisters 'still.
October 2008 2008
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A visit today to a United States District Court in most any section of the Blue Ridge Country where makers of illicit whiskey are being tried shows that the name moonshine no longer applies to the beverage.
Blue Ridge Country Jean Thomas 1945
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It had also spawned an underground, tax-free trade in an illegal substance that would forever be known as moonshine, and a collection apparatus staffed by men from the Bureau of Internal Revenue who would forever be known as revenuers.
LAST CALL DANIEL OKRENT 2010
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It had also spawned an underground, tax-free trade in an illegal substance that would forever be known as moonshine, and a collection apparatus staffed by men from the Bureau of Internal Revenue who would forever be known as revenuers.
LAST CALL DANIEL OKRENT 2010
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The skills required were not all that different from making moonshine, which is why whiskey makers went into oil refining in the nineteenth century.
The Prize Daniel Yergin 2008
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The skills required were not all that different from making moonshine, which is why whiskey makers went into oil refining in the nineteenth century.
The Prize Daniel Yergin 2008
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It used to be called moonshine, now you probably call it white gold because the price of ethanol is going up, but causing some problems, too.
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I recall the moonshine upon their faces, the swift dartings of their faintly luminous blades, their strangely altering shadows on the snow as they moved, the steady attention of us who looked on, the moan of the wind among the trees upon the neighbouring heights, the sound of the men's tramping on the crusted snow, the clear clink of their weapons, sometimes the noise of their breathing.
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ROCKY MOUNT - Franklin County is known for its "white lightning" (aka moonshine), but the
News for WSLS 10 2010
abraxaszugzwang commented on the word moonshine
Moonshine (sometimes known as Poteen, mooney, hooch, mountain dew, or white lightning) is a common slang term for home-distilled alcohol, especially in places where this production is illegal.
The name is often assumed to be derived from the fact that moonshine producers and smugglers would often work at night (i.e. under the light of the moon) to avoid arrest for producing illegal liquor. The 1811 edition of the Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue, originally by Francis Grose, defines "moonshine" as follows: "A matter or mouthful of moonshine; a trifle, nothing. The white brandy smuggled on the coasts of Kent and Sussex, and the gin in the north of Yorkshire, are also called moonshine." 1 It has been suggested that the term might derive from smugglers' explaining away their boxes and barrels as "mere moonshine" (that is, nothing). (Jonathon Green, American Dialect Society Mailing List, 31 Oct 2001)
The Armenian name for moonshine is aragh (the word comes from Arabic araq عرق, meaning "sweat" or "juice")
March 4, 2007
uselessness commented on the word moonshine
Mmm, Mountain Dew.
Side note: There is a tiny, tiny little village in the heart of Florida's Ocala National Forest, called Scrambletown. You won't find it on any map. Scrambletown is a general store, junkyard, honey farm, and fundamentalist Baptist church, surrounded by mobile homes. The population, surely in the low triple-digits, consists mainly of two largish redneck families.
My family stumbled into Scrambletown in 2001. We were considered outcasts, city folk, and (to make matters worse) my mom wouldn't wear long dresses and my dad wouldn't join the local militia. Regardless, I lived there two years before moving away, and my family remained another year before they hit the road as well.
All this to say that Scrambletown's claim to "fame" is that it was a major production center for moonshine during the prohibition. Eventually, the feds came in to raid the place, and everybody scrambled. Hence the name. To this day, Scrambletown remains the nearly-invisible backwoods home of all manner of inbreds, outlaws, and card-carrying members of the KKK. They have withdrawn from society, and society has forgotten them.
March 4, 2007
abraxaszugzwang commented on the word moonshine
that's the best little aside I've read in a long time, true or not.
March 4, 2007
uselessness commented on the word moonshine
It's very true. Frighteningly so.
March 4, 2007
chained_bear commented on the word moonshine
There is a similar "pocket" of individuals, mostly members of a large extended family, around my neighborhood. That they are still making and selling moonshine was made public a year or so ago when it hit the newspapers that students of a local college were caught frequenting the out-of-the-way road to buy gallon jars of homemade liquor. There are still moonshiners out there, it's true.
March 5, 2007
reesetee commented on the word moonshine
Wow. I feel deprived. No pockets of backwoods moonshiners around here that *I* know of.
I agree, though--great asides for a word I've always liked. :-)
March 5, 2007
amcd56 commented on the word moonshine
more than you would think - a mathematical conjecture
http://www.worldwidewords.org/topicalwords/tw-moo1.htm
May 16, 2007