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moonlight

From Wiktionary, the free dictionary

English

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Moonlight

Etymology

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From Middle English monelight, from Old English mōnan lēoht (moonlight, literally moon's light, light of the moon). Equivalent to moon +‎ light. Cognate with Scots munelicht ~ muinlicht, West Frisian moanneljocht, Dutch maanlicht, German Mondlicht.

Pronunciation

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Noun

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moonlight (usually uncountable, plural moonlights)

  1. (sometimes attributive) The light reflected from the Moon.

Hypernyms

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Derived terms

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Translations

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The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables. See instructions at Wiktionary:Entry layout § Translations.

Verb

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moonlight (third-person singular simple present moonlights, present participle moonlighting, simple past and past participle moonlighted)

  1. To work on the side (at a secondary job), often in the evening or during the night.
    • 2004 July, Richard Porter, Paul Kerensa, “MPVs as minicabs” (00:22:29 from the start), in Top Gear (2002 TV series), season 4, episode 7, spoken by James D. May, United Kingdom, Isle of Man, Channel Islands, via BBC Two, →OCLC:
      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.
    • 2011 August 19, Carl Knutson, “The Plane That Flew Too High” (41:00 from the start), in Mayday: Air Disaster, season 11, episode 2, spoken by Jonathan Aris:
      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.
    • 2014, Elizabeth Kolbert, The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History, Picador, →ISBN, page 240:
      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.
  2. (by extension) To engage in an activity other than what one is known for.
    • 2024 July 11, Theodore Schleifer, Jacob Bernstein, Reid J. Epstein, “How Biden Lost George Clooney and Hollywood”, in The New York Times[4], →ISSN:
      Mr. Katzenberg, who moonlights as a top Biden official and has worked with Mr. 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.
  3. (by extension, of an inanimate object) To perform a secondary function substantially different from its supposed primary function, as in protein moonlighting.
  4. (British, dated) To carry out undeclared work.

Usage notes

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In American English, to moonlight is simply to work at secondary employment;[1] in British English, it used to imply working secretly (i.e. not paying tax on the extra money earned), but more recent editions of some UK dictionaries no longer differentiate between the US and UK meaning; in both, legality of moonlighting is thus qualified with adjectives.[2]

Derived terms

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Translations

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References

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  1. ^ Mish, Drederick C. (ed.). 1995. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary. 10th ed. Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster.
  2. ^ Treffry, Diana (ed.). 1999. Collins Paperback English Dictionary. 4th ed. Glasgow: HarperCollins.

Further reading

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Anagrams

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