moonlight

noun

1. (also, attributive, uncountable, usually)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: […]”

   “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.”

2. (archaic, uncountable, usually)The silvery colour of the light reflected by the Moon.
3. (UK, archaic, dialectal, uncountable, usually)Synonym 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. (countable, informal, usually)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”).
5. (countable, obsolete, uncountable, usually)A picture of a scene illuminated by light reflected by the Moon.
6. (US, countable, obsolete, rare, uncountable, usually)A journey made at night when the Moon is shining.
7. (US, countable, obsolete, uncountable, usually)An oratorical competition; also, a participant in such a competition.

verb

1. (informal, intransitive)To do a moonlight flit: to secretly leave premises without paying the rent, supposedly at night by the light of the Moon.
2. (Ireland, historical, intransitive)To make a night-time attack on a tenant farmer not supporting the policies of the Irish National Land League.
3. (informal, intransitive)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.

   “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. (informal, intransitive)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.

   “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. (informal, intransitive)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.

   “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. (Ireland, historical, transitive)Of a tenant farmer: to be attacked for not supporting the policies of the Irish National Land League.