ill-gotten

1. 1.

   obtained illegally or by improper means

   “dirty money”

   “ill-gotten gains”

   Synonymsdirty

   Similarillegal

Questions about ill-gotten

What does ill-gotten mean?

ill-gotten means "obtained illegally or by improper means".

How many syllables are in ill-gotten?

ill-gotten has 3 syllables: ill--got-ten. The stress falls on "ill-".

What is another word for ill-gotten?

Close synonyms include dirty. Each sense on this page lists its own synonyms, because a word with several meanings rarely has one substitute that works for all of them.

Is ill-gotten a common word?

ill-gotten is banded "Uncommon" — turns up in careful writing rather than conversation. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.