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While composing this comment on an earlier question, I got hung up after "clandestine storage".

I felt myself grasping for a single word, styled after errata, desiderata, stigmata, etc, which means "illicit or illegal goods or possessions".

This is a strict : does there exist a single, plural, Latinate (meaning ending in -ata or otherwise sounding official or bureaucratic) which means "stuff you shouldn't have"?

Something that would fit into this blank:

In the wake of the bust, the police confiscated the rival gangs' ________, including three kilograms of cocaine, a trunk full of marijuana, six fully automatic assault rifles, a bandolier of grenades, ten assorted illegal stiletto knives, and several lewd pictures of kittens.

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Dan Bron
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  • "purloined goods" but that's two words, hence a comment not an answer. . – P. O. May 02 '16 at 16:39
  • @P.Obertelli They don't have to be purloined. They can be legitimately purchased, but still verboten (like buying pot from a drug dealer: prohibited, but not purloined). – Dan Bron May 02 '16 at 16:42
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    Maybe just contraband? – Nick May 02 '16 at 16:44
  • @Nick Oh, contraband is good. I'll upvote you if you post that as an answer (with a dictionary definition etc). Lemme check the thesaurus for synonyms (I'm looking for something that "sounds plural"). Thanks dude. – Dan Bron May 02 '16 at 16:45
  • Lol, or you could also just make up a word by taking one of the latin words meaning "to steal" and taking its 4th principle part in the neuter plural perfect passive participle form. After all, that's how you get things like errata. – Nick May 02 '16 at 16:47
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    I'll put up contraband in an hour or two though. – Nick May 02 '16 at 16:48
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    @Nick I can barely conjugate in English. That said, the root wouldn't be to steal (see my earlier comment directed at P. Obertelli), it would have to cover things like mom finding old girly mags in her son's mattress (which he bought with good money). – Dan Bron May 02 '16 at 16:48
  • @dan bron If you want to be very technical, an illegal good can not be "legitimately purchased" by law. You could not go to court because your pot dealer did not deliver the goods paid for, for example. As far as I know, in most country, a contract on an illegal good is null, therefore you can never legitimately be the owner of such good. But I agree, they might not be stolen event though they cannot be legally owned. – P. O. May 02 '16 at 16:56
  • @ dan bron still not one word, but the most "latinate" I could find: "Illicit goods" . That encompass anything which cannot be sold legitimately, whatever the reason, contraband is specific to import/export. See for example http://www.interpol.int/Crime-areas/Trafficking-in-illicit-goods-and-counterfeiting/Trafficking-in-illicit-goods-and-counterfeiting – P. O. May 02 '16 at 17:01
  • @P.Obertelli Yes, thank you, I used "illicit goods" in the original comment, and this question was motivated by a desire for a single-word substitute (mostly because my brain is insisting one exists, of the -ata variety, and that I've used it before; most likely though I am misremembering). I don't think contraband is restricted to import/export, though of course that's one context (of many) where the word is employed. – Dan Bron May 02 '16 at 17:04
  • Booty? Ill-gotten gains? (Both anglosaxon) – Mitch May 02 '16 at 17:37
  • @Mitch You can't really call a concealed (and illegal) weapon booty, right? And while the mags in Jr's mattress may indeed be entitled Booty!, I don't imagine they qualify as booty? Try not to get hung up on only the category of contraband which is stolen. – Dan Bron May 02 '16 at 17:46
  • ??? Most of the items mentioned are not illegal weapons (which, yes, guns are not usually thought of as booty) – Mitch May 02 '16 at 17:52
  • @Mitch It depends on the jurisdiction, I imagine. Both fully automatic rifles and grenades are illegal to own without a special license (rarely and begrudgingly given) from the police (not he state) here in NYC. Also certain kinds of non-ballistic / explosive weapons like stilettos and nunchucks. But anyway, something doesn't have to be illegal to be illicit; I got in trouble once in Morocco because I didn't know you were supposed to take your shoes off before entering a mosque (also you have to be Muslim). And I'm sure candy bars are contraband in fat camps, but not illegal, obviously. – Dan Bron May 02 '16 at 17:57
  • Notwithstanding the above discussion of the relevancy or not of "Illegal" to your question, since we’ve unfortunately succeeded in turning “illegal” into an overly specific (and, imo, offensive) noun in English, maybe it’s not too late to convince the Latin-speaking world to do the same with their “inlegalis” with the hope that they expand it to mean anything that’s “illegal,” depending on the context! – Papa Poule May 02 '16 at 18:32
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    @PapaPoule I think instead of convincing the Latin world to term unregistered migrants "inlegalisii", we should get them to call them Goths! – Dan Bron May 02 '16 at 18:37
  • Don't confuse the endings of Latin desiderata and Greek stigmata. Those aren't related. – tchrist May 02 '16 at 20:42
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    @tchrist I had actually wondered about that, but was too lazy to check. Is one hole in one hand still a "stigmata"? – Dan Bron May 02 '16 at 20:43

2 Answers2

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As user @Nick offered in a comment:

The word contraband, reported in English since 1529, from Medieval French contrebande "a smuggling," denotes any item which, relating to its nature, is illegal to be possessed or sold. –Wiki

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Lots of comments but no answers, so I'll take a shot.

illicita

Plural neuter accusative of illicitus: forbidden, unlawful, illegal, illicit

or

praeda

  1. plunder, spoils of war, booty
  2. prey, game taken in the hunt
  3. gain, profit
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  • Nice. If you can dig up any evidence of illicita being un-self-consciously used in an English text, or listed in a (professional) dictionary, I'll accept this answer. – Dan Bron May 04 '16 at 12:03