Green’s Dictionary of Slang

1. nonsense, a trifle, nothing at all; flattery, humbug; also as bag of moonshine, moonshine in the mustard pot.

1667		J. Taylor in Works (1835) II 126: Labouring for nothings, and preaching all day for shadows and moonshine [F&H].
1678		J. Ray Proverbs (2nd edn) 76: You shall have moon-shine i’th’ mustard-pot for it. i.e. nothing.
1785, 1788, 1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue.
1811		J. Poole Hamlet Travestie I ii: So look before you leap; depend upon it, ’Tis all moonshine, in valentine or sonnet.
1828		J. Thomson An Uncle Too Many I i: Unalterable moonshine!
1830		Owl (NY) 10 July n.p.: Their clamour with respect to ‘Tubs and Firkins’ is all moonshine.
1837		‘Terence O’Shaughnessy’ in Bentley’s Misc. Jan. 39: My fears had been moonshine; my suspicions groundless.
1842		Sthn Australian (Adelaide) 24 Mar. 2/5: Witness the following specimen [of slang] which we have culled out of his last article [...] rob Peter to pay Paul—fudge—hocus pocus—moonshine.
1845		Commercial Advertiser (N.Y.) 22 Nov. n.p.: The story of the Queen of Spain’s secret marriage to her cousin, appears to have been all moonshine.
1852		N.Y. Pick (NY) 21 Feb. n.p.: It’s all gammon and moonshine [...] not one word of truth.
1858		R.S. Surtees Ask Mamma 3: The Pringles were ‘a most respectable family,’ mercantile morality being too often a mere matter of moonshine.
1866		Sportsman 11 Sept. 2/1: Notes on News [...] Among provisions of the Queen’s Regulations [...] is one forbidding any price over regulation being paid by officers for promotion [...] Now practically this is all moonshine [...] this law is broken every day.
1870		Hotten Sl. Dict.
1880		Bulletin (Sydney) 21 Feb. 5/4: Of course, under such circumstances, the promise given in March last for a supply of water to these places by means of this tank was mere moonshine, or, rather – to talk by the card – very milk-and-watery.
1881		‘’Arry on Woman Rights’ in Punch 2 Apr. 156/1: I’ve bin to a lecture! [...] Woman’s Rights and that moonshine.
1894		Truth (Sydney) 20 May 5/1: There is great indigantion and talk about taking proceedings [...] This is all moonshine. The College authorities in Oxford are absolute.
1894		‘Mark Twain’ Pudd’nhead Wilson 85: The whole thing is moonshine.
1906		W. Boyle Eloquent Dempsy (1911) Act I: Oh Jerry, you will be the death of me! Where do you pick up your supplies of moonshine?
1910		Sporting Times 1 Jan. 3/1–2: As I thought, the stories about a morganatic marriage on the Riviera were all moonshine.
1926		E. Pound letter 25 Dec. in Read Letters to James Joyce (1968) 227: Hemingway told Joyce Pound’s idea was ‘moonshine’.
1939		Townsville Daily Bulletin (Queensland) 1 Dec. n.p.: His propaganda of a seven-hour day in Russia is all moonshine.
1951		Kerouac On the Road (The Orig. Scroll) (2007) 180: I began talking moonshine and roses to the monsieur’s young wife.
1966		C. Stead Cotters’ England (1980) 260: You’re ready to cling to anyone who’ll feed you the moonshine you want.
1977		R. Coover Public Burning (1979) 110: Hell, all courtroom testimony about the past is ipso facto and teetotaciously a baldface lie, ain’t that so? Moonshine! Chicanery!
2002		J. Ellroy ‘Where I Get My Weird Shit’ in Destination: Morgue! (2004) 29: You take what you need [...] You impose order. You lay on some moonshine. If you’re skillful [...] it all works.

2. in attrib. use of sense 1, insubstantial, worthless.

1868

Sportsman 11 July 4/1: Notes on News [...] [S]troll down into the City, and with a pocket stuffed out with moonshine securities, go bang up to the heads of confiding directors, and smilingly say, ‘Stand and deliver,’ to the tune of some 200,000l .

3. (also m.s.) illicitly distilled or contraband liquor [fig. use of sense 1 above].

1785		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue n.p.: The white brandy smuggled on the coasts of Kent and Sussex, is [...] called moonshine.
1796		Grose Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue (3rd edn) n.p.: The white brandy smuggled on the coasts of Kent and Sussex and the gin in the north of Yorkshire is [...] called moonshine.
1802		Sporting Mag. Apr. XX 63/2: Ye men of Eastbourne, and the neighbouring shore, / Bewail your loss! Tom Lock — he is no more [...] ’Twas moonshine brought him to this fatal end!
1811		Lex. Balatronicum [as cit. 1796].
1823		Egan Grose’s Classical Dict. of the Vulgar Tongue [as cit. 1796].
1832		Satirist (London) 6 May 147/1: Says I, ‘Moll, there’ll be moonshine in plenty, / And a skinfull of porter and gin’.
1848		Morn. Advertiser (London) 14 July 2/2: Drama, entitled the Drunkard’s Children [...] Mat Moonshine.
1854		Dly Delta (New Orleans, LA) 8 Nov. 1/4: Moonshiners in Danger. The following [...] leaves us in anxiety for the fate of the great moonshine conspirators.
1860		Hotten Dict. of Modern Sl. etc. (2nd edn).
1875		M. Thompson Hoosier Mosaics 14: Her flesh looked like tinted wax mixed with moonshine, and her eyes was as clear as a limestone spring.
1895		Mirror of Life 23 Feb. 5/3: ‘Does I make moonshine? In course I do. [...] An' I never would a bin' caught then but some uv them smart Alexs what we boys beat out endurin’ uv the las' election tuk a noshun that I wuz a keepin’ a still’.
1898		J. Fox Jr ‘On Hell-Fer-Sartain Creek’ in Hell Fer Sartain and Other Stories n.p.: Then they’d take a pull out’n the same bottle o’ moonshine.
1917		N.Y. Tribune 21 Jan. 6/3: Georgia voted for statewide prohibition last May. Since then the ‘Moonshiners’ of the Blue Ridge Mountains have prospered exceedingly [...] ‘Tolliver’ of the mountain is making ‘moonshine’ while the sun shines.
1919		Sun (NY) 1 June 67/3: Known as ‘bootleggers’ because they originally carried bottles of ‘M.S.’ (moonshine) in their boot-legs.
1923		H.C. Witwer Fighting Blood 366: Rags was drunk, – but with hate, not moonshine.
1931		I. Franklyn Knights of the Cockpit 159: The contents of each had been badly cut or refilled with home-brewed moonshine.
c.1935		Memphis Minnie ‘Reachin’ Pete’ 🎵 He met me one Sunday morning, just about the break of day / I was drinking my moonshine, he made me throw my knife away.
1945		J.T. Adams Mountain Murder 23: Haynes saw at a glance that Clary was in his usual condition — befogged with moonshine.
1959		A. Anderson ‘Big Boy’ in Lover Man 53: He’d take a drink of moonshine out of one o’ them paper cups they sell coke in.
1961		Mad mag. July 15: By selling his moonshine around the town / he killed off most of the neighbours.
1965		(con. 1940s) B. Behan Confessions 66: It stands to common reason that the fine old drop of moonshine [...] cannot improve the health.
1979		‘Iceberg Slim’ Airtight Willie and Me 93: I hustled moonshine, bust out craps, been shot, stabbed and poisoned.
1985		F. Deford in Sports Illus. June 🌐 He came back to the gym toting a pint of moonshine.
1989		(con. 1950s–60s) in G. Tremlett Little Legs 57: We’re gonna get some moonshine.
1998		Source Oct. 230: You’ll think you had one too many glasses of moonshine.
2000		Observer 9 Jan. 17: He joined the Canadians’ communal home, confronted his alcoholism, nurtured by prison moonshine.
2005		J. Stahl I, Fatty 175: Maude, who’d been guzzling moonshine nonstop since arriving, had passed out.
2010		K. Richards Life 14: There were liquor stores selling what was basically moonshine with brown paper labels [...] Flying Cock, Fighting Cock, the Grey Major.
2011		D.R. Pollock Devil All the Time 68: [He] used to stop in the store once in a while sniffing around for moonshine.
2015		I. Welsh Decent Ride 105: Some stuff coming my way [...] It’ll make this taste like hillbilly moonshine!
2018		C. Hammer Scrublands [ebook] ‘Moonshine. Make it out the back. Got a still’.
2020		S.A. Crosby Blacktop Wasteland 28: [F]lying down the road moving moonshine.

4. adulterated liquor.

1934

(con. 1920s) J.T. Farrell Young Manhood in Studs Lonigan (1936) 320: You tasted bum gin and moonshine for three days.

5. (US) rice.

1955

Great Bend Trib. (KS) 2 July 3/4: Rice has a lot of names, ranging from ‘moonshine’ or ‘swamp seed’ to ‘John Chinaman’’.