contraband

• POS: Adjective, Noun
• HYPHEN: con=tra=band

CIDE DICTIONARY

contraband, n. [It. contrabando; contra + bando ban, proclamation: cf. F. contrebande. See Ban an edict.].

•  Illegal or prohibited traffic.  [1913 Webster]

  "Persons the most bound in duty to prevent contraband, and the most interested in the seizures."  [1913 Webster]
•  Goods or merchandise the importation or exportation of which is forbidden.  [1913 Webster]
•  A negro slave, during the Civil War, escaped to, or was brought within, the Union lines. Such slave was considered contraband of war.  [1913 Webster]

Contraband of war, that which, according to international law, cannot be supplied to a hostile belligerent except at the risk of seizure and condemnation by the aggrieved belligerent. Wharton.

contraband, a. 

 Prohibited or excluded by law or treaty; forbidden; as, contraband goods, or trade.  [1913 Webster]
"The contraband will always keep pace, in some measure, with the fair trade."  [1913 Webster]

contraband, v. t. 

•  To import illegally, as prohibited goods; to smuggle.  Johnson.  [1913 Webster]
•  To declare prohibited; to forbid.  [1913 Webster]

  "The law severly contrabands
  Our taking business of men's hands."  [1913 Webster]

OXFORD DICTIONARY

contraband, n. & adj.
--n.
1 goods that have been smuggled, or imported or exported illegally.
2 prohibited trade; smuggling.
3 (in full contraband of war) goods forbidden to be supplied by neutrals to belligerents.
--adj.
1 forbidden to be imported or exported (at all or without payment of duty).
2 concerning traffic in contraband (contraband trade).

Derivative

contrabandist n.

Etymology

Sp. contrabanda f. It. (as CONTRA-, bando proclamation)

THESAURUS

contraband

Eighteenth Amendment, Prohibition Party, Volstead Act, actionable, against the law, anarchic, anarchistic, anomic, ban, banned, barred, black-market, bootleg, bootleg liquor, chargeable, cigarette smuggling, cigarettes, contrabandage, contrary to law, criminal, denial, disallowance, disapproved, dope, dope smuggling, drugs, embargo, excluded, exclusion, felonious, flawed, forbade, forbid, forbiddance, forbidden, forbidden fruit, forbidding, gunrunning, hot, hot goods, illegal, illegitimate, illicit, impermissible, index, index expurgatorius, index librorum prohibitorum, inhibition, injunction, interdict, interdiction, interdictum, irregular, jewel smuggling, jewels, justiciable, law, lawless, narcotics, narcotics smuggling, no-no, nonconstitutional, nonlegal, nonlicit, nonpermissible, not permitted, off limits, out of bounds, outlaw, outlawed, preclusion, prevention, prohibited, prohibition, prohibitory injunction, proscribed, proscription, punishable, refusal, rejection, repression, restrictive covenants, ruled out, ruling out, rumrunning, run, shut out, smuggled goods, smuggling, statute, stolen goods, sumptuary laws, suppression, taboo, tabooed, triable, unallowed, unauthorized, unconstitutional, under the ban, under-the-counter, under-the-table, unlawful, unlicensed, unofficial, unpermissible, unsanctioned, unstatutory, untouchable, unwarrantable, unwarranted, verboten, vetoed, wrongful, zoning, zoning laws

ROGET THESAURUS

contraband

Prohibition

N prohibition, inhibition, veto, disallowance, interdict, interdiction, injunction, estoppel, embargo, ban, taboo, proscription, index expurgatorius, restriction, hindrance, forbidden fruit, Maine law, prohibitive, prohibitory, proscriptive, restrictive, exclusive, forbidding, prohibited, not permitted, unlicensed, contraband, impermissible, under the ban of, illegal, unauthorized, not to be thought of, uncountenanced, unthinkable, beyond the pale, on no account, Int, forbid it heaven!, hands off!, keep off!, hold!, stop!, desist!, cease and desist!, avast!, that will never do, don't you dare, forget it, don't even think about doing it, go ahead, make my day.

Illegality

N illegality, lawlessness, illicitness, breach of law, violation of law, infraction of the law, disobedience, unconformity, arbitrariness, antinomy, violence, brute force, despotism, outlawry, mob law, lynch law, club law, Lydford law, martial law, drumhead law, coup d'etat, le droit du plus fort, argumentum baculinum, illegality, informality, unlawfulness, illegitimacy, bar sinister, trover and conversion, smuggling, poaching, simony, outlaw, bad man, v, offend against the law, violate the law, infringe the law, break the law, set the law at defiance, ride roughshod over, drive a coach and six through a statute, ignore the law, make the law a dead letter, take the law into one's own hands, smuggle, run, poach, illegal, unlawful, illegitimate, not allowed, prohibited, illicit, contraband, actionable, unwarranted, unwarrantable, unauthorized, informal, unofficial, injudicial, extrajudicial, lawless, arbitrary, despotic, despotical, corrupt, summary, irresponsible, unanswerable, unaccountable, expired, invalid, unchartered, unconstitutional, null and void, a dead letter, lawless, unregulated, illegally, with a high hand, in violation of law.

Deception

N deception, falseness, untruth, imposition, imposture, fraud, deceit, guile, fraudulence, fraudulency, covin, knavery, misrepresentation, bluff, straw-bail, straw bid, spoof, delusion, gullery, juggling, jugglery, slight of hand, legerdemain, prestigiation, prestidigitation, magic, conjuring, conjuration, hocus-pocus, escamoterie, jockeyship, trickery, coggery, chicanery, supercherie, cozenage, circumvention, ingannation, collusion, treachery, practical joke, trick, cheat, wile, blind, feint, plant, bubble, fetch, catch, chicane, juggle, reach, hocus, bite, card sharping, stacked deck, loaded dice, quick shuffle, double dealing, dealing seconds, dealing from the bottom of the deck, artful dodge, swindle, tricks upon travelers, stratagem, confidence trick, fake, hoax, theft, ballot-box stuffing, barney, brace game, bunko game, drop game, gum game, panel game, shell game, thimblerig, skin game, snare, trap, pitfall, decoy, gin, springe, springle, noose, hoot, bait, decoy-duck, tub to the whale, baited trap, guet-a-pens, cobweb, net, meshes, toils, mouse trap, birdlime, dionaea, Venus's flytrap, ambush, trapdoor, sliding panel, false bottom, spring-net, spring net, spring gun, mask, masked battery, mine, flytrap, green goods, panel house, Cornish hug, wolf in sheep's clothing, disguise, disguisement, false colors, masquerade, mummery, borrowed plumes, pattes de velours, mockery, copy, counterfeit, sham, make- believe, forgery, fraud, lie, a delusion a mockery and a snare, hollow mockery, whited sepulcher, painted sepulcher, tinsel, paste, junk jewelry, costume jewelry, false jewelry, synthetic jewels, scagliola, ormolu, German silver, albata, paktong, white metal, Britannia metal, paint, veneer, jerry building, man of straw, illusion, ignis fatuus, mirage, deceived, deceiving, cunning, prestigious, prestigiatory, deceptive, deceptious, deceitful, covinous, delusive, delusory, illusive, illusory, elusive, insidious, ad captandum vulgus, untrue, mock, sham, make-believe, counterfeit, snide, pseudo, spurious, supposititious, so-called, pretended, feigned, trumped up, bogus, scamped, fraudulent, tricky, factitious bastard, surreptitious, illegitimate, contraband, adulterated, sophisticated, unsound, rotten at the core, colorable, disguised, meretricious, tinsel, pinchbeck, plated, catchpenny, Brummagem, artificial, synthetic, ersatz, simulated, under false colors, under the garb of, under cover of, over the left, keep the word of promise to the ear and break it t, fronti nulla fides, ah that deceit should steal such gentle shapes, a quicksand of deceit, decipimur specie recti, falsi crimen, fraus est celare fraudem, lupus in fabula, so smooth, he daubed his vice with show of virtue.