Moonlighting is working a second job, often without telling the first. Caught moonlighting, moonlighting as a driver, ban on moonlighting.
The secrecy is usually the issue rather than the work, and many contracts require disclosure of any second employment. The name is from working by moonlight — that is, at night, after the first job. Note that in nineteenth-century Ireland moonlighting meant something quite different and much darker.
1nounmoonlightingWorking a second job, often secretly.
“The nurse was fired for moonlighting as a taxi driver without telling the hospital.”
moonlighting is a form of work.
Middle English
moonelight
English
moonlight
English, today
moonlighting
Built from
moonlight comes from Middle English moonelight. The is derived from Middle English moonelight,monelight,mone lyght (“light of the moon; (heraldry) pattern of moons on the field of a heraldic banner”), from mon, mone (“moon”) (from Old English mōna (“moon”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European mḗh₁n̥s (“moon; month”)) + light (“light”) (from Old English lēoht (“light”), ultimately from Proto-Indo-European lewk- (“bright; to see; to shine”)). by surface analysis, moon + light. The is derived from the noun. to do a moonlight flit (“to secretly leave premises without paying the rent”) is a a back-formation from moonlight flit, while to make a night-time attack (“to make a night-time attack on a tenant farmer”) is probably a a back-formation from moonlighter.
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA