"smuggler's bible" meaning in All languages combined

See smuggler's bible on Wiktionary

Noun [English]

Forms: smugglers' bibles [plural]
Etymology: Named after the smuggling practice of hiding contraband inside large hollowed-out books, especially Bibles. See Modern Mechanix for a 1928 example. Apparently it began as a term of art amongst book dealers; see the 1966 citation. Head templates: {{en-noun|smugglers' bibles}} smuggler's bible (plural smugglers' bibles)
  1. (slang) A book that has had some of its interior removed for the purpose of storing small items. Tags: slang Synonyms: hollow book, smuggler's Bible
    Sense id: en-smuggler's_bible-en-noun-Gn5hY5Fp Categories (other): English entries with incorrect language header

Inflected forms

Alternative forms

Download JSON data for smuggler's bible meaning in All languages combined (2.6kB)

{
  "etymology_text": "Named after the smuggling practice of hiding contraband inside large hollowed-out books, especially Bibles. See Modern Mechanix for a 1928 example. Apparently it began as a term of art amongst book dealers; see the 1966 citation.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "smugglers' bibles",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "smugglers' bibles"
      },
      "expansion": "smuggler's bible (plural smugglers' bibles)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        {
          "kind": "other",
          "name": "English entries with incorrect language header",
          "parents": [
            "Entries with incorrect language header",
            "Entry maintenance"
          ],
          "source": "w"
        }
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1966, Joseph McElroy, A Smuggler's Bible, Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., page 327",
          "text": "Inside the Bible's cover is pasted a bookseller's label identifying the article: “A Smuggler's Bible. Used by smugglers on both sides of the Atlantic in the early nineteenth century to conceal small objects of value. Actually a mere box, this ‘Bible’ could be used to contain any assortment of goods the smuggler could get into it. ca. 1820 (?)”",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1989, Tom LeClair, The Art of Excess: Mastery in Contemporary American Fiction, University of Illinois Press, page 135",
          "text": "As the novel proceeds, various kinds of smuggling and allied dishonesties such as counterfeiting and forging are worked into the text, and by the end Brooke's manuscript is placed in a smuggler's bible on shipboard.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1989, Tony Tanner, Scenes of Nature, Signs of Men, Cambridge University Press, page 207",
          "text": "A ‘smuggler's bible’ is a facsimile of the sacred book which contains nothing but can carry anything.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2004, Irene Marcuse, Under the Manhattan Bridge, MacMillan, page 148",
          "text": "I filled him in on Simon and the vacuum press before I explained about my condolence visit the past Friday, and the tabs of Ecstacy in the smuggler's Bible.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A book that has had some of its interior removed for the purpose of storing small items."
      ],
      "id": "en-smuggler's_bible-en-noun-Gn5hY5Fp",
      "links": [
        [
          "book",
          "book"
        ],
        [
          "interior",
          "interior"
        ],
        [
          "removed",
          "removed"
        ],
        [
          "purpose",
          "purpose"
        ],
        [
          "storing",
          "storing"
        ],
        [
          "item",
          "item"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(slang) A book that has had some of its interior removed for the purpose of storing small items."
      ],
      "synonyms": [
        {
          "word": "hollow book"
        },
        {
          "word": "smuggler's Bible"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
        "slang"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "smuggler's bible"
}
{
  "etymology_text": "Named after the smuggling practice of hiding contraband inside large hollowed-out books, especially Bibles. See Modern Mechanix for a 1928 example. Apparently it began as a term of art amongst book dealers; see the 1966 citation.",
  "forms": [
    {
      "form": "smugglers' bibles",
      "tags": [
        "plural"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "head_templates": [
    {
      "args": {
        "1": "smugglers' bibles"
      },
      "expansion": "smuggler's bible (plural smugglers' bibles)",
      "name": "en-noun"
    }
  ],
  "lang": "English",
  "lang_code": "en",
  "pos": "noun",
  "senses": [
    {
      "categories": [
        "English countable nouns",
        "English entries with incorrect language header",
        "English lemmas",
        "English multiword terms",
        "English nouns",
        "English slang",
        "English terms with quotations"
      ],
      "examples": [
        {
          "ref": "1966, Joseph McElroy, A Smuggler's Bible, Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., page 327",
          "text": "Inside the Bible's cover is pasted a bookseller's label identifying the article: “A Smuggler's Bible. Used by smugglers on both sides of the Atlantic in the early nineteenth century to conceal small objects of value. Actually a mere box, this ‘Bible’ could be used to contain any assortment of goods the smuggler could get into it. ca. 1820 (?)”",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1989, Tom LeClair, The Art of Excess: Mastery in Contemporary American Fiction, University of Illinois Press, page 135",
          "text": "As the novel proceeds, various kinds of smuggling and allied dishonesties such as counterfeiting and forging are worked into the text, and by the end Brooke's manuscript is placed in a smuggler's bible on shipboard.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "1989, Tony Tanner, Scenes of Nature, Signs of Men, Cambridge University Press, page 207",
          "text": "A ‘smuggler's bible’ is a facsimile of the sacred book which contains nothing but can carry anything.",
          "type": "quotation"
        },
        {
          "ref": "2004, Irene Marcuse, Under the Manhattan Bridge, MacMillan, page 148",
          "text": "I filled him in on Simon and the vacuum press before I explained about my condolence visit the past Friday, and the tabs of Ecstacy in the smuggler's Bible.",
          "type": "quotation"
        }
      ],
      "glosses": [
        "A book that has had some of its interior removed for the purpose of storing small items."
      ],
      "links": [
        [
          "book",
          "book"
        ],
        [
          "interior",
          "interior"
        ],
        [
          "removed",
          "removed"
        ],
        [
          "purpose",
          "purpose"
        ],
        [
          "storing",
          "storing"
        ],
        [
          "item",
          "item"
        ]
      ],
      "raw_glosses": [
        "(slang) A book that has had some of its interior removed for the purpose of storing small items."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "slang"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "synonyms": [
    {
      "word": "hollow book"
    },
    {
      "word": "smuggler's Bible"
    }
  ],
  "word": "smuggler's bible"
}

This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable All languages combined dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2024-05-09 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2024-05-02 using wiktextract (4d5d0bb and edd475d). The data shown on this site has been post-processed and various details (e.g., extra categories) removed, some information disambiguated, and additional data merged from other sources. See the raw data download page for the unprocessed wiktextract data.

If you use this data in academic research, please cite Tatu Ylonen: Wiktextract: Wiktionary as Machine-Readable Structured Data, Proceedings of the 13th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC), pp. 1317-1325, Marseille, 20-25 June 2022. Linking to the relevant page(s) under https://kaikki.org would also be greatly appreciated.