CONTRABAND • E-FREE TRANSLATION.COM • Definition of Contraband

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/kˈɑntrəbˌænd/ Listen

noun

Contraband n.

Illegal or prohibited traffic. "Persons the most bound in duty to prevent contraband, and the most interested in the seizures."

Goods or merchandise the importation or exportation of which is forbidden.

A negro slave, during the Civil War, escaped to, or was brought within, the Union lines. Such slave was considered contraband of war. (U.S.)

Contraband of war, that which, according to international law, cannot be supplied to a hostile belligerent except at the risk of seizure and condemnation by the aggrieved belligerent.

adjective

Contraband adj. Prohibited or excluded by law or treaty; forbidden; as, contraband goods, or trade. "The contraband will always keep pace, in some measure, with the fair trade."

verb

Contraband v. t.

To import illegally, as prohibited goods; to smuggle. (Obs.)

To declare prohibited; to forbid. (Obs.) "The law severly contrabands Our taking business of men's hands."

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Etymology of 'Contraband'

Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48

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"Contraband" Quotes from Famous Books

... famous among physicians, but the usual ruddy tourist knows them not. The sorrowful ennui of a ten-hour journey on the B.V.D. Chemise de fer (with innumerable examinations of luggage), while it has kept out the contraband Swiss cheese which is so strictly interdicted, has also kept away the rich and garrulous tourist. But he who will endure to the end that tortuous journey among flat fields of rye and parsimony, will find himself well rewarded. The long tunnel through Mondragone ends at length, and you find ...

— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley

... and supplied them with goods of English manufacture. To prevent this illicit trade, the Spaniards doubled the number of ships stationed in Mexico for guarding the coast, giving them orders to board and search every English vessel found in those seas, to seize on all that carried contraband commodities, and confine the sailors. At length not only smugglers, but fair traders were searched and detained, so that all commerce in those seas was entirely obstructed. The British merchants again and again complained to the ministry of depredations committed, and damages ...

— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt

... arrived off Greenwich, and Bramble told me to go on shore and remain with my father and mother until he came down, which he would do in a few days, and pay a visit to his old friend Anderson. I landed with all my contraband articles in the boat, but no one thought of stopping or searching the former "Poor Jack." My insignificance was my protection; and I arrived safely at Fisher's Alley with all my curiosities and prohibited effects. When I entered the house, I perceived that ...

— Poor Jack • Frederick Marryat

... "for such has been the rule of our watch ever since the days of the excellent centurion Sisyphus, in whose time it first was determined, that all contraband commodities or suspicious weapons, or the like, which were brought into the city during the nightwatch, should be uniformly forfeited to the use of the soldiery of the guard; and where the Emperor finds the goods or arms ...

— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott

... and finely, without regard to society. She thought instinctively of Sodom and Gomorrah, and she saw righteously with her mind's eye for a moment an angel with a flaming sword consigning to destruction these offending mansions and their owners as symbols of mammon and contraband to God. ...

— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant

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