moonshine
- Informal. smuggled or illicitly distilled liquor, especially corn liquor as illicitly distilled chiefly in rural areas of the southern U.S.
- empty or foolish talk, ideas, etc.; nonsense.
- the light of the moon; moonlight.
Origin of moonshine
Examples from the Web for moonshine
Contemporary Examples of moonshine
He wrote a few more paperback originals, two of them westerns, then sold The Moonshine War to Doubleday in hardcover.
Gambling, girls; you could buy a pint of moonshine for a dime, store-bought whiskey for a quarter.
Daryl, insulted, smashes it to bits and finds her moonshine instead.
Historical Examples of moonshine
Seaward from palace-haunts, in the moonshine glistened and darkened.
PoemsWilliam D. Howells
And the bridges are not of iron and concrete, but of rainbows and––moonshine!
The Book of KhalidAmeen Rihani
The high road, whitened by the moonshine, stretched far into the distance.
The Fortune of the RougonsEmile Zola
It means just moonshine and mush and lookin' into each other's eyes, that's about all.
The PortygeeJoseph Crosby Lincoln
I don't suppose they have been able to check the making of moonshine—that is, not to any extent?
Frank Merriwell Down SouthBurt L. Standish
moonshine
- another word for moonlight (def. 1)
- US and Canadian illegally distilled or smuggled whisky or other spirit
- foolish talk or thought
Word Origin and History for moonshine
c.1500, "moonlight," from moon (n.) + shine (n.). In figurative use, implying "appearance without substance," from late 15c.; perhaps connected in that sense with notion of "moonshine in water" (cf. moonraker). Meaning "illicit liquor" is attested from 1785 (earliest reference is to that smuggled on the coasts of Kent and Sussex); moonlight also occasionally was used in this sense early 19c. As a verb from 1883. Related: Moonshiner (1860).