smuggle.
To import or export, illicitly or by stealth, without paying lawful customs charges or duties
Meaning & usage
To import or export, illicitly or by stealth, without paying lawful customs charges or duties
To bring in surreptitiously
To fondle or cuddle.
To thrash or be thrashed by a bear's claws, or to swipe at or be swiped at by a person's arms in a bearlike manner.
Where this word comes from
Etymology tree Proto-Indo-European *(s)mewk- Proto-Indo-European *smewg-der. Proto-Germanic *smeuganą Proto-West Germanic *smeugan Old Dutch *smūgan Middle Dutch *smugen Proto-Germanic *-lōną Proto-West Germanic *-lōn Old Dutch -lon Middle Dutch -elen Middle Dutch *smuggelen Dutch smokkelenbor.? Low German smuggelnbor.? English smuckle English smuggle From earlier smuckle, either from Dutch smokkelen (“to smuggle”), a frequentative form of Middle Dutch smūken (“to act secretly, be sneaky”), from Old Dutch *smugan, or from Dutch Low Saxon or German Low German smuggeln; all are from Proto-West Germanic *smeugan (“to creep; slip through or into”). cognates and related terms Cognate with Saterland Frisian smuggelje (“to smuggle”), West Frisian smokkelje (“to smuggle”), German Low German smuggeln, smuckeln (“to move insidiously, smuggle”), German schmuggeln (“to smuggle”), Danish smugle (“to smuggle”), Swedish smuggla (“to smuggle”). Related also to Icelandic smjúga (“to creep, penetrate”), Swedish smyga (“to sneak, slip, crawl, lurk, steal”), German schmiegen (“to nestle, wrap, snuggle”), Old English smēogan, smūgan (“to creep, crawl, move gradually, penetrate”).
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Definitions, grammatical labels, IPA, etymology and examples: Wiktionary contributors, extracted by Kaikki / Wiktextract. Adapted under CC BY-SA 4.0. Selected fields and authored examples are shown; third-party quotations and audio are omitted. See contributor history.
Last enriched 2026-09-10. Definitions are in English. Romanizations are shown when supplied by the source; syllable estimates are omitted for unsupported scripts.