The contraband will always keep pace, in some measure,
with the fair trade. --Burke.
2. To declare prohibited; to forbid. [Obs.]
The law severly contrabands Our taking business of
men's hands. --Hudibras.
Persons the most bound in duty to prevent
contraband, and the most interested in the seizures.
--Burke.
2. Goods or merchandise the importation or exportation of
which is forbidden.
3. 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. --Wharton.