moonlighting, vbl. n.
(ˈmuːnlaɪtɪŋ)
[f. moonlight n. + -ing1.]
1. The performance by night of an expedition, or of an illicit action.
| 1881 Gentl. Mag. Jan. 67 The exciting occupation of moonlighting... The object is to capture the cattle that have gone wild [etc.]. 1883 Century Mag. July 330/2 Sometimes well owners ‘torpedo’ their wells stealthily by night to avoid paying the high price charged by the company. This operation is called ‘moonlighting’. |
2. spec. In Ireland, the perpetration by night of outrages on the persons or property of tenants who incurred the hostility of the Land League.
| 1882 Pall Mall G. 20 June 2/1 As Boycotting is preferable to ‘Moonlighting’, so is parliamentary obstruction to physical force. 1892 Times 9 Dec. 9/1 A gross ‘moonlighting’ outrage is reported from Kerry, where..a party of ten men entered the house of a farmer..and treated him so brutally that he is not expected to recover. |
| fig. 1886 Huxley in Life (1900) II. ix. 144 All good men and true should combine to stop this system of literary moonlighting. |
3. The act or practice of
moonlight v. 3.
colloq. (
orig. U.S.).
| 1957 Reporter (N.Y.) 8 Aug. 11/3 He takes two or three hours off and then..departs for a second job... The practice is known as ‘moonlighting’. 1961 Economist 16 Dec. 1145/2 Several attempts have been made to ban moonlighting on the ground that it robs the unemployed of jobs. 1972 Times 8 Jan. 21/2 What about moonlighting? This is not the distilling of illicit liquor but the taking of a second job to keep body and soul together, or to finance one's own personal brand of extravagance. |
So
ˈmoonlighting ppl. a.| 1886 Pall Mall G. 26 Aug. 8/2 Small Moonlighting gangs. 1887 Spectator 8 Oct. 1330 One of the moonlighting party that attacked Sexton's house. |