moonlight
Part of speech: noun
verb
Morphological type: derivation
Topics: art
arts
Etymology: Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *meh₁-?
Proto-Indo-European *mḗh₁n̥s
Proto-Germanic *mēnô
Proto-West Germanic *mānō
Old English mōna
Middle English mone
Proto-Indo-European *lewk-der.
Proto-Germanic *leuhtaz
Proto-West Germanic *leuht
Old English lēoht
Middle English light
Middle English moonelight
English moonlight
The noun is derived from Middle English moonelight, monelight, mone lyght (“light of the moon; (heraldry) pattern of moons on the field of a heraldic banner”), from mon, mone (“moon”) (from Old English mōna (“moon”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *mḗh₁n̥s (“moon; month”)) + light (“light”) (from Old English lēoht (“light”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *lewk- (“bright; to see; to shine”)). By surface analysis, moon + light.
The verb is derived from the noun. Verb sense 1.1 (“to secretly leave premises without paying the rent”) is a back-formation from moonlight flit, while verb sense 1.2 (“to make a night-time attack on a tenant farmer”) is probably a back-formation from moonlighter.
cognates
* Dutch maanlicht
* German Mondlicht
* Scots muinlicht, munelicht
* West Frisian moanneljocht
Inflected forms:
form: moonlights
pos: noun
tags: plural
form: moonlights
pos: verb
tags: present
singular
third-person
form: moonlighting
pos: verb
tags: participle
present
form: moonlighted
pos: verb
tags: participle
past
form: moonlighted
pos: verb
tags: past
Senses:
gloss: The light reflected from the Moon, which seems to emanate from it.
pos: noun
tags: also
attributive
uncountable
usually
examples: 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: […]
The night comes on, vve, eager to purſue / The Combat ſtil, and they aſham'd to leave: / Till the laſt ſtreaks of dying day vvithdrevv, / And doubtful Moon-light did our rage deceive.
This choleric gentleman, vvho vvas a country ſquire, no ſooner ſavv his rival, than he began to brandiſh his cudgel in a menacing poſture, […] This attitude, and the ſight of the blade vvhich glittened by moonlight in his face, checked in ſome ſort, the ardour of his aſſailant, […]
'Tis eight o’clock,—a clear March night, / The moon is up,—the sky is blue, / The owlet, in the moonlight air, / Shouts from nobody knows where; […]
He found him in a little moonlight room, / Pale, lattic'd, chill, and silent as a tomb.
It was the pensive oysterman that saw a lovely maid, / Upon a moonlight evening, a-sitting in the shade;
[S]he passed away noiselessly, and the moonlight kissed the wall which her shadow had dimmed.
What say you, gentlemen, shall we have a moonlight hunt?
The windows were curtainless, and the yellow moonlight, flooding in through the diamond panes, enabled one to see even colours, whilst it softened the wealth of dust which lay over all and disguised in some measure the ravages of time and the moth.
They were still under the white-plum tree and their faces were touching except for a pale, thin ray of moonlight between.
It [the Arkenstone] was as if a globe had been filled with moonlight and hung before them in a net woven of the glint of frosty stars.
Let's go on a moonlight swim / Far away from the crowd / All alone upon the beach / Our lips and our arms / Close within each other's reach / We'll be on a moonlight swim
The night was very quiet. It was always quiet except on moonlight nights. Darkness held a vague terror for these people, even the bravest among them. […] On a moonlight night it would be different. The happy voices of children playing in open fields would then be heard. And perhaps those not so young would be playing in pairs in less open places, and old men and women would remember their youth.
gloss: The silvery colour of the light reflected by the Moon.
pos: noun
tags: archaic
uncountable
usually
gloss: Synonym of moonshine (“illegally produced or smuggled spirits”).
pos: noun
tags: UK
archaic
dialectal
uncountable
usually
examples: 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.
gloss: Chiefly 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”).
pos: noun
tags: countable
informal
usually
gloss: A picture of a scene illuminated by light reflected by the Moon.
pos: noun
tags: countable
obsolete
uncountable
usually
gloss: A journey made at night when the Moon is shining.
pos: noun
tags: US
countable
obsolete
rare
uncountable
usually
gloss: An oratorical competition; also, a participant in such a competition.
pos: noun
tags: US
countable
obsolete
uncountable
usually
gloss: To do a moonlight flit: to secretly leave premises without paying the rent, supposedly at night by the light of the Moon.
pos: verb
tags: informal
intransitive
gloss: To make a night-time attack on a tenant farmer not supporting the policies of the Irish National Land League.
pos: verb
tags: Ireland
historical
intransitive
gloss: To 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.
pos: verb
tags: informal
intransitive
examples: 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.
gloss: To 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.
pos: verb
tags: informal
intransitive
examples: 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.
gloss: To 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.
pos: verb
tags: informal
intransitive
examples: Some proteins have a primary function of acting as enzymes, but moonlight by carrying out secondary roles such as signal transduction or transcriptional regulation.
gloss: Of a tenant farmer: to be attacked for not supporting the policies of the Irish National Land League.
pos: verb
tags: Ireland
historical
transitive
Related words: moonlit
Derived words: do a moonlight flit
moonlight-and-magnolia
moonlight and roses
moonlight blue
moonlight flit
moonlight requisition
moonlight school
moonlight tower
moonlighty
stink like a mackerel in the moonlight
moonlighter
moonlighting
Translations:
lang: Estonian
word: kuusära
lang: Estonian
word: kuu valgus
lang: Finnish
word: kuun valaisema
lang: Finnish
word: kuutamoinen
lang: Galician
word: aluarado
lang: Galician
word: lueiro
lang: Polish
word: światło księżyca
lang: Scots
word: munelicht
lang: Bulgarian
word: рабо́тя на две места́
roman: rabótja na dve mestá
lang: Chinese Cantonese
word: 秘撈 /秘捞
roman: bei³ lou¹
lang: Dutch
word: zwartwerken
lang: Estonian
word: eraotsa tegema
lang: Estonian
word: haltuurat tegema (sovietism)
lang: Estonian
word: kõrvalt tegema
lang: Finnish
word: tehdä keikkaa
lang: Finnish
word: tehdä sivutyötä
lang: French
word: avoir une double casquette
lang: French
word: cumuler
lang: French
word: travailler au noir
lang: German
word: eine Nebenbeschäftigung ausüben
lang: German
word: nebenher noch schwarz arbeiten
lang: German
word: schwarzarbeiten
lang: Irish
word: obair faoi choim a dhéanamh
lang: Italian
word: lavorare in nero
lang: Polish
word: dorabiać sobie
lang: Polish
word: dorobić sobie
lang: Portuguese
word: fazer bico
lang: Russian
word: подраба́тывать
roman: podrabátyvatʹ
lang: Russian
word: шаба́шничать
roman: šabášničatʹ
lang: Russian
word: халту́рить
roman: xaltúritʹ
lang: Spanish
word: dobletear
lang: Spanish
word: pluriemplearse
lang: Spanish
word: estar pluriempleado
lang: Spanish
word: ser pluriempleado
lang: Spanish
word: hacer chambismo
lang: Swedish
word: extraknäcka
lang: Ukrainian
word: ма́ти підробі́ток
roman: máty pidrobítok
lang: Ukrainian
word: підробля́ти
roman: pidrobljáty
lang: Vietnamese
word: ăn mảnh