bootlegger

noun

boot·​leg·​ger ˈbüt-ˌle-gər 

-ˌlā-

plural bootleggers

: one who bootlegs something: such as

a

: a person who makes or sells alcoholic liquor illegally

… in sleepy little St-Hilaire, once a Prohibition boom town, from which bootleggers smuggled truckloads of whisky into the U.S. …

—Will Ferguson

Most of us associate the pocket flask with the Roaring Twenties era of the bootlegger and the speakeasy …

—Linda Rosenkrantz

b

: a person who produces, reproduces, or distributes something (such as a recording) illicitly or without authorization

As part of his job, Schoenfeld is charged with ferreting out record bootleggers and protecting the copyright interests of record labels.

—Holly Gleason

… the conversation ran from how the different companies project returns on direct mail to efforts to crack down on software bootleggers.

—Leslie Brokaw

Synonyms

• smuggler

Examples of bootlegger in a Sentence

a bootlegger of counterfeit electronics

Recent Examples on the Web

The granddaughter of a bootlegger grows up to be an upstanding citizen and a minister’s wife. —Matthew Adams, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 26 Aug. 2025

Sharon Stone co-stars as a mob boss with a few screws loose — her gang of bootleggers toggles with Hutch, threatening to ruin everyone’s R&R. —Brent Lang, Variety, 15 Aug. 2025

Ranch hands and migrant farmers arrived in the eighteen-hundreds, followed by bootleggers, bartenders, drug runners, and pimps. —Burkhard Bilger, New Yorker, 28 July 2025

However, when a bootlegger is seen as simply trying to ride others’ success in a self-serving manner, community support quickly wanes, and job opportunities for the bootlegger can even dry out. —London School Of Economics, Forbes.com, 13 May 2025

Word History

Etymology

bootleg entry 1 + -er entry 2

First Known Use

1886, in the meaning defined above

Rhymes for bootlegger

• beggar
• egger
• jaeger