🥃 Making illegal alcohol 🤪 Foolish talk

moonshining

1 7.8

Making alcohol in secret without government permission

noun
/ˈmuːnˌʃaɪnɪŋ/

NSFW

: fabricación clandestina de licor

Local farmers turned to moonshining as a way to earn extra money during tough times.

Examples

He had the sheriff on cross-examination and asked why he hadn't also arrested his client's neighbors for moonshining.

Academic text (2009)
Plenty of Cherokee County farmers, in a tough agricultural economy, resorted to moonshining to feed their families and meet mortgage or tax obligations.

Academic text (2013)
Still, moonshining was preferable to financial ruin.

Academic text (2013)
In October 1914, the US District Court in Atlanta was prepared to try 150 defendants on charges of moonshining.

Academic text (2013)
During Prohibition, many people engaged in moonshining to produce homemade liquor.
The police raided several locations suspected of moonshining in the remote hills.

Synonyms

bootlegging

vsmoonshining

2 7.6

Making and selling alcohol in a way that breaks the law

focuses on illegal production done secretly without government permission

How Illegal

bootlegging

2 7.6

moonshining

NSFW

1 7.8

brewing

Specialized

52 3.5

Surface Forms

moonshining singular

moonshinings plural

Morphology

moonshining = moonshine (opaque) = moon + shine + ing

The -ing form is a regular way to name the activity, but the specialized liquor-making sense is historical rather than compositionally obvious.

Etymology

The word moonshining meaning the illegal making of alcohol comes from people working at night by the light of the moon to 'hide' from the law. So moonshining is making liquor secretly and without permission.