moonlight

noun

1. 1

   The light reflected from the Moon, which seems to emanate from it.

   Meronym: moonbeam

   Than Ripheus him ſelf adioynd, & myghty moſt with launce / Came Iphitus onto my ſide, by monelight met by chaunce.

   If you vvill patiently daunce in our Round, / And ſee our Moonelight Reuelles, goe vvith vs: / If not, ſhunne me, and I vvill ſpare your haunts.

   Hovv ſvveete the Moone-light ſleeps vpon this banke, / Heere vvill vve ſit, and let the ſounds of muſicke / Creepe in our eares ſoft ſtillneſſe, and the night / Become the tutches of ſvveete harmony: […]

2. 2

   archaicThe silvery colour of the light reflected by the Moon.

3. 3

   archaicSynonym of moonshine (“illegally produced or smuggled spirits”).

   Barter'd for game from chace or warren won, / Yon cask holds moonlight, run when moon was none; / And late-snatch'd spoils lie stow'd in hutch apart, / To wait the associate higgler's evening cart.

   A fast-sailing lugger will soon bring you there though, snug stowed under hatches, like a cask of moonlight.

4. 4

   informalChiefly in to do a moonlight: short for moonlight flit (“an act of secretly leaving premises without paying the rent, supposedly at night by the light of the Moon; hence, any act of escaping at night”).

5. 5

   obsoleteA picture of a scene illuminated by light reflected by the Moon.

6. 6

   obsoleteA journey made at night when the Moon is shining.

7. 7

   obsoleteAn oratorical competition; also, a participant in such a competition.

verb

1. 1

   informalTo do a moonlight flit: to secretly leave premises without paying the rent, supposedly at night by the light of the Moon.

2. 2

   historicalTo make a night-time attack on a tenant farmer not supporting the policies of the Irish National Land League.

3. 3

   informalTo do work for pay (sometimes illegally, secretly, or without paying income tax on the earnings) which is in addition to a main job, often in the evening or at night.

   There are three individual rear seats. They all slide, they all fold, or they can all be removed completely, so that you can moonlight as a van.

   Investigators discover that Captain Ospina was forced to take a second job, moonlighting in a bar, in order to make ends meet for his family.

   Believing the bones to belong to a cave bear, the quarry owner passed them on to a local schoolteacher, Johann Carl Fuhlrott, who moonlighted as a fossilist.

4. 4

   informalTo do work for pay (sometimes illegally, secretly, or without paying income tax on the earnings) which is in addition to a main job, often in the evening or at night. To engage in an activity other than what one is known for.

   Mr. [Jeffrey] Katzenberg, who moonlights as a top [Joe] Biden official and has worked with Mr. [George] Clooney on philanthropy for decades, reached out to him to see if there was an off-ramp, according to three people familiar with the matter.

5. 5

   informalTo do work for pay (sometimes illegally, secretly, or without paying income tax on the earnings) which is in addition to a main job, often in the evening or at night. Of a thing: to perform a secondary function substantially different from a supposed primary function.

   Some proteins have a primary function of acting as enzymes, but moonlight by carrying out secondary roles such as signal transduction or transcriptional regulation.

6. 6

   historicalOf a tenant farmer: to be attacked for not supporting the policies of the Irish National Land League.

Forms

plural

moonlights

past tense

moonlighted

past participle

moonlighted

present participle

moonlighting

third person singular

moonlights