smuggle

Meaning

Verb

• To import or export, illicitly or by stealth, without paying lawful customs charges or duties
• To bring in surreptitiously
• To fondle or cuddle.
• 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.

Origin

• From earlier smuckle, either from Dutch smokkelen ("to smuggle"), a frequentative form of Middle Dutch smuken ("to act secretly, be sneaky"), or from Dutch Low Saxon or German Low German smuggeln. The Dutch and Low German words are both ultimately from Proto-Germanic *smeuganą ("to creep; slip through or into"), from Proto-Indo-European *smewk-, *smewg-.
• Cognate with Saterland Frisian smukkeln ("to move insidiously, smuggle"), West Frisian smokkelje ("to smuggle"), German schmuggeln ("to smuggle"), Danish smugle ("to smuggle"), Swedish smuggla ("to smuggle"). Related also to Icelandic smjúga ("to creep, penetrate"), Swedish smyga ("to sneak, slip, crawl, lurk, steal"), German schmiegen ("to nestle, wrap, snuggle"), Old English smēogan, smūgan.