SMUGGLE

Pronunciation (US):

(GB):

IPA (US):

 Dictionary entry overview: What does smuggle mean? 

• SMUGGLE (verb)
  The verb SMUGGLE has 1 sense:

1. import or export without paying customs duties

  Familiarity information: SMUGGLE used as a verb is very rare.

 Dictionary entry details 

• SMUGGLE (verb)

Present simple: I / you / we / they smuggle    ... he / she / it smuggles   
Past simple: smuggled   
Past participle: smuggled   
-ing form: smuggling   

Sense 1

Meaning:

Import or export without paying customs duties

Classified under:

Verbs of buying, selling, owning

Context example:

She smuggled cigarettes across the border

Hypernyms (to "smuggle" is one way to...):

import (bring in from abroad)

export (sell or transfer abroad)

Domain category:

crime; criminal offence; criminal offense; law-breaking ((criminal law) an act punishable by law; usually considered an evil act)

commerce; commercialism; mercantilism (transactions (sales and purchases) having the objective of supplying commodities (goods and services))

Sentence frames:

Somebody ----s
Somebody ----s something
Somebody ----s somebody
Somebody ----s somebody PP
Somebody ----s something PP

Sentence examples:

They smuggle the food to the people
They smuggle the people the food

Derivation:

smuggler (someone who imports or exports without paying duties)

smuggling (secretly importing prohibited goods or goods on which duty is due)

 Context examples 

We’ve had nothing else this week back; nothing but papers, and a closed door, and the very meals left there to be smuggled in when nobody was looking.

(The Strange Case Of Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson)

Then she wrote a short, simple note, and with Laurie's help, got them smuggled onto the study table one morning before the old gentleman was up.

(Little Women, by Louisa May Alcott)

Had it not been for a lugger which I specially hired to smuggle them, I might have been reduced to English tan.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

Two years ago a very large sum was smuggled through the Estimates and was expended in acquiring a monopoly of the invention.

(His Last Bow, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)

There is wild talk of cannon aboard, and of strange raids and expeditions she may make, ranging from opium smuggling into the States and arms smuggling into China, to blackbirding and open piracy.

(The Sea-Wolf, by Jack London)

He had been a member of the crew of the smuggling schooner Halcyon when she was captured by a revenue cutter.

(Martin Eden, by Jack London)

“We must make it stretch as far as we can; that's all. I'll do the best in my power for you. I can go out when I like, and I'll smuggle the prog in.”

(David Copperfield, by Charles Dickens)

So that was all we could draw from him; but, young as I was, I had heard of coast smuggling and of packages carried to lonely places at night, so that from that time on, if I had heard that the preventives had made a capture, I was never easy until I saw the jolly face of Champion Harrison looking out of his smithy door.

(Rodney Stone, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle)