Entry in progress—B.P.
 
(Oxford English Dictionary)
boot-legger, n.
Etymology:— boot-leg n. + -er suffix1. Compare boot-leg n. 2.
One who carries liquor in his boot-legs; (hence) an illicit trader in liquor.
1889   Sanger Rep. in J. B. Thoburn Hist. Oklahoma (1916) I. 223   Liquor dealers (or as they are called here ‘boot-leggers’).
   
Merriam-Webster Dictionary
bootlegger noun
boot·​leg·​ger | \ ˈbüt-ˌle-gər , -ˌlā-\
plural bootleggers
Definition of bootlegger
: one who bootlegs something: such as
a : a person who makes or sells alcoholic liquor illegally
b : a person who produces, reproduces, or distributes something (such as a recording) illicitly or without authorization
First Known Use of bootlegger
1886, in the meaning defined above
     
OCLC WorldCat record
The real story of a bootlegger.
Author: Reginald Wright Kauffman
Publisher: New York : Boni and Liveright, [©1923]
Series: (MN: *ZZ-34632).
Edition/Format:   Book   Microform : Microfilm : Master microform : English
   
OCLC WorldCat record
Alcohol and the Bootlegger
Author: Ismar Ginsberg
Edition/Format: Article Article : English
Publication: Scientific American, v128 n6 (19230601): 370-424
   
OCLC WorldCat record
That little contemptible bootlegger.
Author: E S S Huntington
Publisher: ©1923.
Edition/Format:   Musical score : English
   
OCLC WorldCat record
The bootlegger girl
Author: William Merriam Rouse
Edition/Format:   Article : Fiction : EnglishView all editions and formats
Publication: Sea stories magazine, vol. 3, no. 6 (Jan. 20, 1923), p. [54]-61
 
Urban Dictionary
bootlegger
A bootlegger is a person who sells alcohol off hours. Orriginally a bootlegger was a person who smuggled contraband onto a ship in the long boots made of waxed leather used to keep dry when entering and exiting small boats used to get to and from a ship at anchor. Contraban was hidden inside the boots in order to sneak it onto the ship.
 
Durring american prohibition many of todays larger beer breweries and alcohol distilleries remained active although illigally, these companies exist today because they were able to act as bootlegger and moonshiners during these terrible times.
(...)
by The_doctor April 28, 2006
 
OCLC WorldCat record
The bootlegger
Author: Clive Cussler; Justin Scott
Publisher: Detroit, Michigan Large Print Press, 2015.
Edition/Format:   book_largeprint : Fiction : English : Large print edition
Summary:
It is 1920. Prohibition and bootlegging are in full swing. When Joseph Van Dorn is shot and nearly killed while in pursuit of a rum-running vessel, his friend and employee, Isaac Bell, swears to him that he will hunt down the lawbreakers. But Bell doesn’t know what he is getting into. When a witness to the shooting is executed in a manner peculiar to the Russian secret police, it becomes clear that these were no ordinary bootleggers. Bell is facing a team of Bolshevik assassins and saboteurs, and they are intent on overthrowing the government of the United States.