Dictionary

foodlegger en · NOUN

Etymology

Blend of food + bootlegger. Attested since circa 1941.

Meanings

1. An illicit foodseller, especially in a jurisdiction where food is subject to rationing.
   • All branches of the retail industry agreed that the plan, far from being selfish on our part, would [provide] food in normal and equitably established channels, making food available for all types of stores without creating foodleggers and black markets. 1943, A Study and Investigation of the National Defense Program in Its Relation to Small Business: […] :
   • Recent price controls on butter are rapidly helping to make this item as popular as meat with "foodleggers," and the ceilings on fresh vegetables are an open invitation to black market operators to enter this field. 1950, David Hinshaw, Herbert Hoover: American Quaker:
   • Foodleggers. One sinister development that aggravated the food situation was the rise in wartime Britain of a new kind of criminal: the food racketeer. Like gangsters who terrorized the U.S. under Prohibition, foodleggers have highjacked trucks ... 1941, Time:

Forms