Definition of "moonshine"

[...] her Waggon Spokes made of long Spinners legs: the Couer of the wings of Graſhoppers, her Traces of the ſmalleſt Spiders web, her coullers of the Moonſhines watry Beames [...]

c. 1591–1595 (date written), William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of Romeo and Ivliet”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene iv]

[...] the newes coming every moment of the growth of the fire; so as we were forced to begin to pack up our owne goods; and prepare for their removal; and did by moonshine (it being brave dry, and moonshine, and warm weather) carry much of my goods into the garden [...]

1666 September 2, Samuel Pepys, edited by Mynors Bright, The Diary of Samuel Pepys‎, London: George Bell & Sons, published 1893

[...] I have been in an Ague fit, ever ſince ſhut of Evening; what with the fright of Trees by the High-way, which look'd maliciouſly like Thieves, by Moon-ſhine: and what with Bulruſhes by the River-ſide, that ſhak'd like Spears, and Lances at me.

1690, [John] Dryden, Amphitryon; or, The Two Sosia’s. […], London: […] J[acob] Tonson, […]; and M. Tonson […], published 1691, Act II, scene i, page 11

[...] O Nymph more bright than moon-ſhine night, like Kidlings blithe and merry [...]

1718, John Gay, “O ruddier than the Cherry”, from Act 2 of George Frideric Handel’s opera Acis and Galatea, page 47

In mist or cloud on mast or shroud / It perch’d for vespers nine, / Whiles all the night thro’ fog smoke-white / Glimmer’d the white moon-shine.

1798, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”, in Lyrical Ballads, Part I, page 10

So I came forth of the sea and sat down on the edge of an island in the moonshine, where a passer-by found me and, carrying me to the his house, besought me of love-liesse; but I smote him on the head, so that he all but died; whereupon he carried me forth and sold me to the merchant from whom thou hadst me, [...]

1885, Richard F. Burton, The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night

“[...] it would be lovely to sleep in a wild cherry-tree all white with bloom in the moonshine, don’t you think? [...]”

1908, Lucy Maud Montgomery, chapter 2, in Anne of Green Gables‎

“Wish I'd been more polite to that girl,” the sheriff remarked regretfully. [...] I know she’d have give me another drink of that old moonshine she has.”

1920, Peter B. Kyne, chapter IV, in The Understanding Heart

My great grandpa was a blues lover / He'd be rockin' his moonshine to B.B. King and Jimmy Reed

1974, Betty Davis (lyrics and music), “They Say I'm Different”, performed by Betty Davis

“[...] But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be? Suppose you had decided to follow Snowball, with his moonshine of windmills—Snowball, who, as we now know, was no better than a criminal?”

1945, George Orwell, chapter 5, in Animal Farm‎

We forget what we have learned in the last 60 years. At university I once asked one of my lecturers why he was not talking to us about continental drift and I was told, sneeringly, that if I could I prove there was a force that could move continents, then he might think about it. The idea was moonshine, I was informed.

2012 October 28, Robin McKie, “David Attenborough: force of nature”, in The Observer‎, retrieved 29 October 2012

[...] wherefore ſhould I / Stand in the plague of cuſtome, and permit / The curioſity of Nations to depriue me? / For that I am ſome twelue, or fourteene Moonſhines / Lag of a brother?

c. 1603–1606, William Shakespeare, “The Tragedie of King Lear”, in Mr. William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies […] (First Folio), London: […] Isaac Iaggard, and Ed[ward] Blount, published 1623, [Act I, scene ii]