- present participle of moonlight.
moonlighting
Britishnoun
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working at a secondary job
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(in 19th-century Ireland) the carrying out of cattle-maiming, murders, etc, during the night in protest against the land-tenure system
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.
As a teenager she was moonlighting as a referee, raising enough money to fund a trip to South Africa to watch the 2010 World Cup as a fan.
From Los Angeles Times • May 31, 2026
He quit Momofuku Ko but when the chef at Sergeantsville Inn left, he stepped in and was soon moonlighting in the kitchen a few days a week.
From The Wall Street Journal • Feb. 27, 2026
Back in 2001, the English Premier League took that step and fans saw a drastic improvement once the referees no longer spent their days moonlighting as teachers or taxi drivers.
From The Wall Street Journal • Dec. 17, 2025
The 24-year-old is moonlighting at Eurovision from his day job at the Vienna State Opera, where he's had roles in The Magic Flute and Von der Liebe Tod.
From BBC • May 16, 2025
Teachers, especially a teacher moonlighting as a counselor, tend to get left out of student gossip.
From "Thirteen Reasons Why" by Jay Asher
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.
