bootlegger

American  

[boot-leg-er] / ˈbutˌlɛg ər /

noun

1. a person who makes or sells liquor or other goods illegally.

   A bootlegger named George Cassiday secretly supplied members of Congress with liquor during Prohibition.

   The sort of criminals of interest to the piracy commission are large-scale DVD bootleggers, not individual downloaders.

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Etymology

Origin of bootlegger

bootleg ( def. ) + -er ¹

Example Sentences

Musical piracy also hit Zamrockers, as bootleggers made money by copying and selling their music.

From BBC

“Sinners,” set in 1932, stars Michael B. Jordan in a dual performance as twin bootleggers Smoke and Stack, who return from Chicago to their Mississippi home to open a juke joint.

From Salon

That novel — yearning, lyrical, mordant — tells the story of Jay Gatsby, a millionaire bootlegger and minor gangster, who remakes himself in a disastrous attempt to win Daisy Buchanan, the society girl he once loved.

From New York Times

Why conflate early Renaissance aristocrats with early 20th century bootleggers?

From Los Angeles Times

She became a wife at 15, a mother at 16 and a grandmother in her early 30s, married to a womanizing sometime bootlegger who managed her to stardom.

From New York Times