Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- v. To make, sell, or transport (alcoholic liquor) for sale illegally.
- v. To produce, distribute, or sell without permission or illegally: a clandestine outfit that bootlegs compact discs and tapes.
- v. To engage in the bootlegging of alcoholic liquor or another product.
- v. To attach a transmitter to a dish antenna, creating an uplink via which a signal is sent to a satellite without the knowledge of the satellite's owner.
- v. Football To fake a hand-off, conceal the ball on the hip, and roll out in order to pass or especially to rush around the end. Used of a quarterback.
- n. A product, especially alcoholic liquor, that is illicitly produced, distributed, or sold.
- n. The part of a boot above the instep.
- n. Football A play in which the quarterback bootlegs.
- adj. Produced, sold, or transported illegally: bootleg gin; bootleg tapes.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The part of a boot above the upper; leather cut out for the leg of a boot.
- n. One of the levers connected with the winding mechanism of a spinning-mule: so named from its shape.
Wiktionary
- v. transitive to make, transport and/or sell illegal alcoholic liquor
- v. transitive to make, transport and/or sell an illegal version or copy of a copyright product
- v. intransitive to engage in bootlegging
- n. The part of a boot that is above the instep
- n. An illegally produced, transported or sold product; contraband
- n. American football A play in which the quarterback fakes a handoff, conceals the ball against his hip, and rolls out.
- adj. illegally produced, transported or sold; pirated
GNU Webster's 1913
- adj. distributed or sold illicitly; especially, imported illegally.
- v. to sell illicit products such as drugs or alcohol.
- v. to produce alcohol illegally.
WordNet 3.0
- v. sell illicit products such as drugs or alcohol
- v. produce or distribute illegally
- n. whiskey illegally distilled from a corn mash
- adj. distributed or sold illicitly
- n. the part of a boot above the instep
Etymologies
- from the carrying of bottles of smuggled spirit in the legs of boots (Wiktionary)
- From a smuggler's practice of carrying liquor in the legs of boots. (American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition)
Examples
“For the sake of sanity, radio shows and other broadcasts are lumped in with "bootlegs" -- the term bootleg is taken to be anything not released by the band on one of its official record companies.”
“Since there has never been an official home entertainment release, this rarely-seen work has turned up in bootleg versions.”
“Three cigarette commercials have been circulating in bootleg channels for years.”
“No way a bootleg is gong to capture the energy of that show.”
“Piracy, as in bootleg sales of CD ` s and DVD ` s.”
“The film is among the most conspicuous titles in bootleg circulation, so Cher fans will have no problems tracking it down.”
“He was sometimes a hard man, something born perhaps of working during the Depression on what are known as bootleg pits - unlicensed coal mines where he often, with a couple of his brothers, would work eight hours with a pick and shovel, then spend eight more hours guarding piles of coal they had mined from desperate and hungry thieves.”
“By the way, I'm happy to announce to those lazy bastards who haven't bought seats, that if they go to the foyer or the shop next to the theater, we are putting out the official bootleg, which is me singing all the Spamalot demos, which will be out for a few weeks before the cast album is available.”
“He finally understood the excitement he had witnessed as a child when the "bootleg" seminars were being held in the family's home.”
“De Vos was famous around Berkeley for what he labeled his free-wheeling extra-curricular "bootleg" seminars-which he held in the little WWII vintage green bungalow across from Kroeber Hall-as well as in his gracious Berkeley Hills home.”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘bootleg’.
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Interesting words
A list of words that are odd or words that I have looked up.
concupiscence, brize, scree, scoria, forestaff, spanaemia, valetudinarianism, distasture, pyrethrum, laudanum, gentian, bicameral and 11250 more...
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Football
pigskin, touchdown, field goal, yardage, quarterback, halfback, tailback, blitz, offense, defense, cornerback, linebacker and 39 more...
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Twitter favorites
The new favourite words of people on Twitter.
A script searches Twitter for "X is my new favorite word" and adds it to this list.
See also:
unfathomably, glice, cuh, fab, ciggaty, doll, thuggin, oxymoronic, pineapple, succubutt, griming, cheeky and 3063 more... -
Words I have to learn
exasperate, felony, weld, fraud, worksheet, ransom, rehearse, preliminary, offshore, parole, infamous, sieve and 436 more...
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Nightmare Alley
From the novel by William Lindsay Gresham
geek, mark, rubber, calliope, booze-fool, rummy, the horrors, the crawling snakes, equalizer, bubbies, grubstake, softshoe and 99 more...
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dyy's Words
ambivalence, irony, double-edged sword, paradox, struggle, plunge, buoy, pigeon-hole, ultimately, status quo, fuel, undermine and 230 more...
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Time for a new list!
abrupt, erupt, rupture, sync, appropinquity, heterochromia, homochromatic, monochromatic, willy nilly, nitty gritty, kowtow, wonton and 455 more...
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Vocab++
Words as I learn them.
fetid, mezzanine, hiatus, austerity, subliminal, resplendent, implacable, impugn, debase, exiguous, cirque, holster and 2538 more...
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Just 'cause I like 'em, B
bloviate, bejesus, brouhaha, behoove, bodacious, bamboozle, banshee, bub, bolus, blob, bubbly, bleb and 414 more...
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dienekes's Words
chutzpah, lexicon, intrepid, pedagogical, schlemiel, schism, erudite, anathema, pugilist, jaunty, paradigm, automaton and 949 more...
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magoosh1
aberration, aboveboard, abysmal, ace, affable, aghast, alacrity, ambiguous, ambivalent, ameliorate, amenable, amiable and 222 more...
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Magoosh
menace, injunction, juggernaut, refrain, mnemonic, abysmal, grueling, ace, gregarious, amiable, wacky, esoteric and 201 more...
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vocab
hard word word 4 strong vocab
ostracize, importune, impute, scintillate, mulct, deprecate, procrastinate, rusticate, vegetate, expiate, emulate, gesticulate and 345 more...
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sarahlena's list
Vocabularies
knee, admire, ambition, bend, experience, grow up, memory, opportunity, proud, regret, success, invent and 49 more...
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Moonshine
screech, moonshine, hooch, rotgut, firewater, bootleg, red-eye, sauce, varnish, mountain dew, sly grog, poteen and 30 more...
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Rie's Vocab List
bootleg, warranty, admire, ambition, experience, grow up, memory, opportunity, proud, regret, success, sarcastic
Tweets
Looking for tweets for bootleg.

sarahlena bootleg = illegal May 13, 2009
rie Jeremire taught me this word when we talked about movie. May 13, 2009