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smuggle

verb

Simple meaning

Import or export without paying customs duties.

Pronunciation

Say it like this:

smuhguhl

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US device voice
IPA pronunciation (US)

ˈsmʌɡəl

This word is pronounced essentially the same in American and British English, so one transcription covers both.

IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet) is a standard way of writing speech sounds.

Word Review

Definition

Everyday modern meanings first, grouped by part of speech.

verb

  1. Import or export without paying customs duties

    “She smuggled cigarettes across the border.”

  2. slang

    To thrash or be thrashed by a bear's claws, or to swipe at or be swiped at by a person's arms in a bearlike manner.

  3. transitive

    To bring in surreptitiously

Word at a Glance

Difficulty
C2 · Proficient (estimated)
Frequency
Rare

Word Aura™

How this word commonly comes across.

Aura for this meaning

This meaning: Import or export without paying customs duties

Used this way, smuggle is a common word that usually carries little praise or criticism of its own. It turns up most in ethics or values contexts.

Heard in a sentence
“She smuggled cigarettes across the border.”
Emotional tone
Neutral
Formality
Neutral
Intensity
Not strongly marked
How common
Common
Connotation
No strong connotation
Usage feel
Neutral and straightforward

Where it naturally appears

  • Ethics/values

Word Aura describes common impressions, not a measurement. Tone changes with sentence, speaker, relationship and situation.

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Common Patterns and Combinations

How this word naturally appears with others.

smuggle armshelped smuggle

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Word Family

Related forms, grouped by how they connect.

Inflected forms

Grammatical variations of the same word.

  • smugglingnounInflected form

    Secretly importing prohibited goods or goods on which duty is due.

  • smugglernounInflected form

    Someone who imports or exports without paying duties.

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Dictionary data from Wiktionary via the Free Dictionary API. Simple meanings, combinations and word intelligence are built from verified reference data, no AI is used to load this page.