moonshine
English · Français · Deutsch · Thesaurus
AI In plain words
Writing a short explanation…
Written by a house AI from the entry below, in your language. The entry itself is the source.
moonshine
- /ˈmuːnʃaɪn/
Where it comes from
From Middle English mone schyne, mone-schyne, moone shone; equivalent to moon + shine. Illegally distilled liquor is so named because its manufacture may be conducted without artificial light at night. The verb sense is a back-formation from moonshiner.
noun moonshines · moon-shine
- The light of the moon. […] her Waggon Spokes made of long Spinners legs: the Couer of the wings of Graſhoppers, her Traces of the ſmalleſt Spiders web, her coullers of the Moonſhines watry Beames […]
-
The light reflected off Earth's Moon.
Similar: moonlight, Moonlight, moon-light, Moon-light, moon light, Moon light, moonbeam, moon-beam, moon beam
-
The light reflected off a moon.
Similar: moonlight, moon-light, moon light
-
High-proof alcohol (especially whiskey) that is often, but not always, produced illegally.
They watered down the moonshine.
Similar: bathtub gin, bootleg, coon dick, corn liquor, hooch, moonlight, mountain dew, white lightning
-
Smuggled spirits, often with a specific sense; (Kent, Sussex) white brandy; (Yorkshire) gin.
Similar: moonlight
- Nonsense. He was talking moonshine.
- A branch of pure mathematics relating the Monster group to an invariant of elliptic functions.
- A spiced dish of eggs and fried onions.
- A month. […] wherefore ſhould I / Stand in the plague of cuſtome, and permit / The curioſity of Nations to depriue me? / For that I am ſome twelue, or fourteene Moonſhines / Lag of a brother?
verb moonshines · moonshining · moonshined
- To make homemade (especially, illicit) alcohol, especially distilled spirits. His grandfather started to moonshine when things got really bad in 1933; when he got caught moonshining, he did a bit of time.
- To make (an ingredient) into such a drink. A more practical critic notes that paleolithic man had a very sweet tooth, which he sated with honey. Worse, he moonshined the honey into metheglin, an alcoholic brew. Booze and junk food, in other words, are hardly modern inventions.
Translations
Every language
noun illicit liquor
| Español | alcohol ilegal |
|---|---|
| 日本語 | 密造酒 mitsuzōshu |
| 中文 | 私酿酒 sīniàngjiǔ, 私酒 sījiǔ |
| Kiswahili | chang'aa |
| Português | moonshine |
| Français | alcool de contrebande |
| Deutsch | schwarzgebrannter Schnaps, Selbstgebrannter, Schwarzbrennerei |
| Русский | самого́н samogón |
| Tiếng Việt | rượu ngang |
Talk about this word "moonshine." Wiktionary, via Micwyn, micwyn.com/word/moonshine. Accessed 6 Nov. 2026. moonshine. (n.d.). In Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Retrieved November 6, 2026, from https://micwyn.com/word/moonshine "moonshine." Wiktionary, via Micwyn. Accessed November 6, 2026. https://micwyn.com/word/moonshine.Cite this
@misc{moonshine_2026,
title = {moonshine},
howpublished = {Wiktionary, via Micwyn},
year = {2026},
url = {https://micwyn.com/word/moonshine},
urldate = {2026-11-06}
}
