Etymology From Middle English mone schyne, mone-schyne, moone shone; equivalent to moon + shine. Illegally distilled liquor is so named because its manufacture may be conducted without artificial light at night. The verb sense is a back-formation from moonshiner.
[…] her Waggon Spokes made of long Spinners legs: the Couer of the wings of Graſhoppers, her Traces of the ſmalleſt Spiders web, her coullers of the Moonſhines watry Beames […]c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene iv]:
[…] the newes coming every moment of the growth of the fire; so as we were forced to begin to pack up our owne goods; and prepare for their removal; and did by moonshine (it being brave dry, and moonshine, and warm weather) carry much of my goods into the garden […]1666 September 11 (date written; Gregorian calendar), Samuel Pepys, Mynors Bright, transcriber, “September 2nd, 1666”, in Henry B[enjamin] Wheatley, editor, The Diary of Samuel Pepys […], volume (please specify |volume=I to X), London: George Bell & Sons […]; Cambridge: Deighton Bell & Co., published 1893–1899, →OCLC:
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[…] I have been in an Ague fit, ever ſince ſhut of Evening; what with the fright of Trees by the High-way, which look'd maliciouſly like Thieves, by Moon-ſhine: and what with Bulruſhes by the River-ſide, that ſhak'd like Spears, and Lances at me.1690, [John] Dryden, Amphitryon; or, The Two Sosia’s. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […]; and M. Tonson […], published 1691, →OCLC, Act II, scene i, page 11:
[…] O Nymph more bright than moon-ſhine night, like Kidlings blithe and merry […]1718, John Gay, “O ruddier than the Cherry”, from Act 2 of George Frideric Handel’s opera Acis and Galatea, page 47
In mist or cloud on mast or shroud / It perch’d for vespers nine, / Whiles all the night thro’ fog smoke-white / Glimmer’d the white moon-shine.1798, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, in Lyrical Ballads, Part I, page 10:
So I came forth of the sea and sat down on the edge of an island in the moonshine, where a passer-by found me and, carrying me to the his house, besought me of love-liesse; but I smote him on the head, so that he all but died; whereupon he carried me forth and sold me to the merchant from whom thou hadst me, […]1885–1888, Richard F[rancis] Burton, transl. and editor, A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, now Entituled The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night […], Shammar edition, volume (please specify the volume), [London]: […] Burton Club […], →OCLC:
Informal High-proof alcohol (especially whiskey) that is often, but not always, produced illegally.
They watered down the moonshine.
“Wish I'd been more polite to that girl,” the sheriff remarked regretfully. […] I know she’d have give me another drink of that old moonshine she has.”1920, Peter B. Kyne, chapter IV, in The Understanding Heart:
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My great grandpa was a blues lover / He'd be rockin' his moonshine to B.B. King and Jimmy Reed1974, Betty Davis, “They Say I'm Different”, performed by Betty Davis:
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UK, Archaic, Dialectal Smuggled spirits, often with a specific sense; (Kent, Sussex) white brandy; (Yorkshire) gin.
“[…] But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be? Suppose you had decided to follow Snowball, with his moonshine of windmills—Snowball, who, as we now know, was no better than a criminal?”1945, George Orwell, chapter 5, in Animal Farm:
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We forget what we have learned in the last 60 years. At university I once asked one of my lecturers why he was not talking to us about continental drift and I was told, sneeringly, that if I could I prove there was a force that could move continents, then he might think about it. The idea was moonshine, I was informed.2012 October 28, Robin McKie, “David Attenborough: force of nature”, in The Observer, retrieved 29 Oct 2012:
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Mathematics, Sciences A branch of pure mathematics relating the Monster group to an invariant of elliptic functions.
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Cooking, Food, LifestyleUS A spiced dish of eggs and fried onions.
[…] wherefore ſhould I / Stand in the plague of cuſtome, and permit / The curioſity of Nations to depriue me? / For that I am ſome twelue, or fourteene Moonſhines / Lag of a brother?c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act I, scene ii]:
Etymology From Middle English mone schyne, mone-schyne, moone shone; equivalent to moon + shine. Illegally distilled liquor is so named because its manufacture may be conducted without artificial light at night. The verb sense is a back-formation from moonshiner.
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To make homemade (especially, illicit) alcohol, especially distilled spirits.
His grandfather started to moonshine when things got really bad in 1933; when he got caught moonshining, he did a bit of time.
Tommy is seventy-seven years old. He started moonshining at the age of seven. He was working for an outfit by the age of eight. He worked for the outfit fulltime until he was sixteen. He moonshined off and on until his mid-twenties. He works at a sawmill now as well.2007, Jason Sumich, “It's All Legal Until You Get Caught: Moonshining in the Southern Appalachians”, in Ethnographic and Linguistic Field Schools, volume 1: Summer 2007: Alleghany County, Appalachian State University, retrieved 15 Dec 2023:
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To make (an ingredient) into such a drink.
A more practical critic notes that paleolithic man had a very sweet tooth, which he sated with honey. Worse, he moonshined the honey into metheglin, an alcoholic brew. Booze and junk food, in other words, are hardly modern inventions.1985 June 6, “Opinion: Topics: Lean and Rich History: Ancient Eatings”, in New York Times, retrieved 15 Dec 2023, Section A, page A26: