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bootleg

[boot-leg] / ˈbutˌlɛg /


Example Sentences

Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.

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The spool suit is the latest in a coordinated effort by California’s municipalities and the state attorney general’s office to throttle the bootleg gun industry by stanching the flow of its precursor components.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 10, 2026

But the efforts barely make a dent in the bootleg market.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 11, 2026

This is not new: authorities in Vietnam perennially and publicly bust bootleg vendors to show that they are doing something about the country's ubiquitous shadow economies.

From BBC ● Jul. 5, 2026

Stick Figure’s “Angels Above Me” went viral as an uncredited AI bootleg, “Run Run River.”

From Los Angeles Times ● Jun. 16, 2026

His voice vibrated, like he was singing, like he was some kind of bootleg Dr. King.

From "The Boy in the Black Suit" by Jason Reynolds

If you didn’t tape a copy off of your local FM station, it wasn’t hard to find somebody that did, and it became one of the first commercial R.E.M. bootlegs.

From Salon ● Oct. 7, 2026

Patrick Mahomes is coming off knee surgery, and Andy Reid will need to scheme around what he can’t do yet, mainly moving out of the pocket on bootlegs.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 9, 2026

And presumably, he can print some crazy, one-off Deep Purple bootlegs just for himself?

From BBC ● Apr. 8, 2023

Stream much of Season 1 to 5 free on Pluto; bootlegs of individual episodes are easy to find online.

From New York Times ● Jan. 31, 2023

They wore broad Panama hats, flannel shirts, with no coats or vests, and strong duck trousers thrust into their bootlegs.

From The Land of Mystery by Edward Sylvester Ellis

My TV habit included rental-store tapes of bootlegged movies and shows dubbed from American TV.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Dec. 30, 2025

When Slim is reluctant to skip his steady gig for these sharks, Stack almost magically gifts him a bootlegged Irish beer from Chicago.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 17, 2025

Atlanta’s young quarterback, Desmond Ridder, bootlegged for a 6-yard touchdown on fourth-and-4 with just under 12 minutes remaining.

From Washington Times ● Sep. 17, 2023

Call it the sheet music equivalent of a bootlegged mixtape.

From New York Times ● Sep. 13, 2022

I wish I could stop one of them and give them sage advice about the future and bootlegged exams.

From "Saints and Misfits" by S.K. Ali

With four simple words, a sport that was born out of bootlegging, good ole boys and fast cars graduated from a regional sideshow to a national spectacle.

From Los Angeles Times ● Oct. 17, 2023

“We’re in an impossible situation that’s reminiscent of the Prohibition era, where the federal government prohibited alcoholic beverages, bootlegging was rampant, and that’s exactly what’s happening in the District today,” Mendelson said.

From Washington Post ● Aug. 17, 2022

Elsewhere, Rosalía raps, “I think I’m Dapper Dan,” high fashion’s onetime bootlegging remixer.

From New York Times ● Mar. 17, 2022

The deal is complicated by a recent ruling by the World Trade Organization that the Saudis facilitated the bootlegging of sports broadcasts, as well as the kingdom’s human rights record.

From Seattle Times ● Jun. 21, 2020

Foreign bootlegging of minerals is so thorough that our neighbor the French Congo, without a single diamond mine in its borders, is the world’s fifth-largest exporter of diamonds.

From "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver




Vocabulary lists containing bootleg


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