"side hustle" meaning in English

See side hustle in All languages combined, or Wiktionary

Noun

Forms: side hustles [plural]
Head templates: {{en-noun}} side hustle (plural side hustles)
  1. (informal, slang) A secondary job that brings in extra cash. Tags: informal, slang Related terms: moonlighting, nixer, on the side, side bitch Translations (secondary job): activité secondaire [feminine] (French), Nebenerwerb [masculine] (German), Nebengeschäft [neuter] (German), mellékállás (Hungarian), mellékfoglalkozás (Hungarian), mellékes (Hungarian), bico [masculine] (Portuguese), ocupación secundaria [feminine] (Spanish), emprendimiento adicional [masculine] (Spanish), nghề tay trái (Vietnamese)

Inflected forms

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          "ref": "2015 December 14, Carl Richards, “Your Most Valuable Asset Is Yourself”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:",
          "text": "But think of this side hustle as an opportunity to do something you love to do.",
          "type": "quote"
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          "ref": "2017 March 31, Rob Walker, “Headphones Won’t Solve the Problem of a Chatty Colleague”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:",
          "text": "“I love the side hustle. It allows you to do something that your job does not allow you to do.”",
          "type": "quote"
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          "ref": "2017 August 11, “Survey: 44 million Americans have a “side hustle””, in WSPA 7NEWS, archived from the original on 23 Feb 2023:",
          "text": "The majority of Americans with a side hustle are young millennials,[…]",
          "type": "quote"
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          "ref": "2023 February 23, Michael Levenson, quoting Neil Clarke, “Science Fiction Magazines Battle a Flood of Chatbot-Generated Stories”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:",
          "text": "He wrote on Twitter that the submissions were largely “driven by ‘side hustle’ experts making claims of easy money with ChatGPT.”",
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          "ref": "2025 August 10, Natasha Singer, “Computer Science Grads Struggle to Find Jobs in the A.I. Age”, in The New York Times, New York, N.Y.: The New York Times Company, →ISSN, →OCLC:",
          "text": "Ms. Mishra, the Purdue graduate, did not get the burrito-making gig at Chipotle. But her side hustle as a beauty influencer on TikTok, she said, helped her realize that she was more enthusiastic about tech marketing and sales than software engineering.",
          "type": "quote"
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        "A secondary job that brings in extra cash."
      ],
      "id": "en-side_hustle-en-noun-YJLQVMGf",
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        "(informal, slang) A secondary job that brings in extra cash."
      ],
      "related": [
        {
          "word": "moonlighting"
        },
        {
          "word": "nixer"
        },
        {
          "word": "on the side"
        },
        {
          "word": "side bitch"
        }
      ],
      "tags": [
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      "translations": [
        {
          "code": "fr",
          "lang": "French",
          "lang_code": "fr",
          "sense": "secondary job",
          "tags": [
            "feminine"
          ],
          "word": "activité secondaire"
        },
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          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "lang_code": "de",
          "sense": "secondary job",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "Nebenerwerb"
        },
        {
          "code": "de",
          "lang": "German",
          "lang_code": "de",
          "sense": "secondary job",
          "tags": [
            "neuter"
          ],
          "word": "Nebengeschäft"
        },
        {
          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "lang_code": "hu",
          "sense": "secondary job",
          "word": "mellékállás"
        },
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          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "lang_code": "hu",
          "sense": "secondary job",
          "word": "mellékfoglalkozás"
        },
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          "code": "hu",
          "lang": "Hungarian",
          "lang_code": "hu",
          "sense": "secondary job",
          "word": "mellékes"
        },
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          "code": "pt",
          "lang": "Portuguese",
          "lang_code": "pt",
          "sense": "secondary job",
          "tags": [
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        },
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          "code": "es",
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          "lang_code": "es",
          "sense": "secondary job",
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          ],
          "word": "ocupación secundaria"
        },
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          "code": "es",
          "lang": "Spanish",
          "lang_code": "es",
          "sense": "secondary job",
          "tags": [
            "masculine"
          ],
          "word": "emprendimiento adicional"
        },
        {
          "code": "vi",
          "lang": "Vietnamese",
          "lang_code": "vi",
          "sense": "secondary job",
          "word": "nghề tay trái"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "word": "side hustle"
}
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      "word": "moonlighting"
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    {
      "word": "nixer"
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      "word": "on the side"
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      "word": "side bitch"
    }
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        },
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              12,
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            ]
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          "ref": "2017 March 31, Rob Walker, “Headphones Won’t Solve the Problem of a Chatty Colleague”, in The New York Times, →ISSN:",
          "text": "“I love the side hustle. It allows you to do something that your job does not allow you to do.”",
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              44
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            [
              66,
              77
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          "text": "Ms. Mishra, the Purdue graduate, did not get the burrito-making gig at Chipotle. But her side hustle as a beauty influencer on TikTok, she said, helped her realize that she was more enthusiastic about tech marketing and sales than software engineering.",
          "type": "quote"
        }
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        "A secondary job that brings in extra cash."
      ],
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        "(informal, slang) A secondary job that brings in extra cash."
      ],
      "tags": [
        "informal",
        "slang"
      ]
    }
  ],
  "translations": [
    {
      "code": "fr",
      "lang": "French",
      "lang_code": "fr",
      "sense": "secondary job",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "activité secondaire"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "lang_code": "de",
      "sense": "secondary job",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "Nebenerwerb"
    },
    {
      "code": "de",
      "lang": "German",
      "lang_code": "de",
      "sense": "secondary job",
      "tags": [
        "neuter"
      ],
      "word": "Nebengeschäft"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "lang_code": "hu",
      "sense": "secondary job",
      "word": "mellékállás"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "lang_code": "hu",
      "sense": "secondary job",
      "word": "mellékfoglalkozás"
    },
    {
      "code": "hu",
      "lang": "Hungarian",
      "lang_code": "hu",
      "sense": "secondary job",
      "word": "mellékes"
    },
    {
      "code": "pt",
      "lang": "Portuguese",
      "lang_code": "pt",
      "sense": "secondary job",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "bico"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "lang_code": "es",
      "sense": "secondary job",
      "tags": [
        "feminine"
      ],
      "word": "ocupación secundaria"
    },
    {
      "code": "es",
      "lang": "Spanish",
      "lang_code": "es",
      "sense": "secondary job",
      "tags": [
        "masculine"
      ],
      "word": "emprendimiento adicional"
    },
    {
      "code": "vi",
      "lang": "Vietnamese",
      "lang_code": "vi",
      "sense": "secondary job",
      "word": "nghề tay trái"
    }
  ],
  "word": "side hustle"
}

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This page is a part of the kaikki.org machine-readable English dictionary. This dictionary is based on structured data extracted on 2025-12-23 from the enwiktionary dump dated 2025-12-02 using wiktextract (6fdc867 and 9905b1f). 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.