Wiktionary

moonlight

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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  • (US) enPR: mo͞on'līt, IPA(key): /ˈmunˌlaɪt/
  • Audio (US):(file)
  • Hyphenation: moon‧light

Noun

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moonlight (usually uncountable, plural moonlights)

  1. (sometimes attributive) The light reflected from the Moon.
    • c. 1595–1596 (date written), William Shakespeare, “A Midsommer Nights Dreame”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies: Published According to the True Originall Copies (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act II, scene i]:
      If you will patiently dance in our round / And see our moonlight revels, go with us; / If not, shun me, and I will spare your haunts.
    • c. 1596–1598 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Merchant of Venice”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, →OCLC, [Act V, scene i]:
      How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank! / Here will we sit and let the sounds of music / Creep in our ears: soft stillness and the night / Become the touches of sweet harmony.
    • 1751, [Tobias] Smollett, The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to IV), London: Harrison and Co., […], →OCLC:
      […] the sight of the blade which glistened by moonlight in his face, checked, in some sort, the ardour of his assailant […]
    • 1798, William Wordsworth, The Idiot Boy‎[1], lines 1–4:
      ’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;
    • 1830, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Ballad of the Oysterman‎[2], lines 5–6:
      It was the pensive oysterman that saw a lovely maid, / Upon a moonlight evening, a-sitting in the shade;
    • 1849, Currer Bell [pseudonym; Charlotte Brontë], chapter 13, in Shirley. A Tale. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I to III), London: Smith, Elder and Co., […], →OCLC:
      She passed away noiselessly, and the moonlight kissed the wall which her shadow had dimmed.
    • 1889, Robert Louis Stevenson, chapter XII, in The Master of Ballantrae. […], London, Paris: Cassell & Company, […], →OCLC:
      What say you, gentlemen, shall we have a moonlight hunt?
    • 1897, Bram Stoker, chapter 3, in Dracula, New York, N.Y.: Modern Library, →OCLC:
      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.
    • 1925, F[rancis] Scott Fitzgerald, chapter 6, in The Great Gatsby, New York, N.Y.: Charles Scribner’s Sons, published 1953, →ISBN, →OCLC:
      They were still under the white plum tree and their faces were touching except for a pale thin ray of moonlight between.
    • 1937 September 21, J[ohn] R[onald] R[euel] Tolkien, “A Thief in the Night”, in The Hobbit: Or There and Back Again, revised edition, New York, N.Y.: Ballantine Books, published February 1966 (August 1967 printing), →OCLC, page 257:
      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.
    • 1957, Sylvia Dee, “Moonlight Swim” (song recorded by Nick Noble and Elvis Presley),[3]
      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 / Will be on a moonlight swim
    • 1958, Chinua Achebe, chapter 2, in Things Fall Apart, New York: Astor-Honor, published 1959:
      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.

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.
Translations to be checked

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.
  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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