smuggle
Americanverb (used with object)
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to import or export (goods) secretly, in violation of the law, especially without payment of legal duty.
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to bring, take, put, etc., surreptitiously.
She smuggled the gun into the jail inside a cake.
verb (used without object)
verb
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to import or export (prohibited or dutiable goods) secretly
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(tr; often foll by into or out of) to bring or take secretly, as against the law or rules
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to conceal; hide
Other Word Forms
Etymology
Origin of smuggle
1680–90; < Low German smuggeln; cognate with German schmuggeln
Explanation
If you import or export something without paying customs duties, you smuggle it. All kinds of things have been smuggled over the years: art, alcohol, drugs, animals, even tea! The verb smuggle has expanded to generally mean to bring something in or out in secret, especially if doing so breaks a rule or a law. Kids may smuggle candy into a movie theater so they don't have to pay the high prices at the concession stand. You may smuggle Christmas presents into the house so your kids don't see them. Illegal immigrants may be smuggled into the country for a fee, but if caught they can be deported.
Vocabulary lists containing smuggle
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
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The Circuit
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Enrique's Journey
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Smuggle a mutt into a no-pet building, and after a few months spent hiding from the super, you may just pack up and move to a place with a pet concierge.
From Seattle Times • Nov. 20, 2018
Mr. Lewis made 16-millimeter sound home movies and by 1949 was enlisting celebrity friends for short comedies with titles like “How to Smuggle a Hernia Across the Border.”
From New York Times • Aug. 20, 2017
It’s a tricky situation, but a sensible man might see options on the table: Smuggle Juliet to Mantua to be with her husband?
From Salon • Apr. 23, 2014
"Smuggle Truck was inspired by the frustration our friends have experienced in trying to immigrate to the United States," Smuggle Truck's developer, Boston-based firm Owlchemy Labs, said in a statement posted online.
From Reuters • Feb. 9, 2011
"Smuggle me in something to read," I said, as he left with profuse apologies for his hurry.
From Caught by the Turks by Yeats-Brown, Francis
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
