do a moonlight—(coll.) secretly move from a flat (under the cover of night) usually to avoid paying the rent:
- The tenant had done a “moonlight” with no warning even though the lease still had many months to run.
moonlight—(coll.) work (often illegally) at a second job in addition to one’s main job:
- Sasquatch is a tractor-trailer driver by day—by night, he moonlights as a musically inclined cigar distributor.
Note: The compound does not correlate in meaning with the verb moonshine—(U.S. coll.) make liquor, especially whisky, illicitly:
- He acknowledged no occupation save that of a squirrel hunter, but he “moonshined” occasionally by way of diversion.