huckster
pronunciation
How to pronounce huckster in British English:
UK [ˈhʌkstə(r)]
How to pronounce huckster in American English:
US [ˈhʌkstɚ]
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- Noun:
- a seller of shoddy goods
- a person who writes radio or tv advertisements
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- Verb:
- sell or offer for sale from place to place
- wrangle (over a price, terms of an agreement, etc.)
Word Origin
- huckster
- huckster: [12] The Low German dialects of northern Germany appear to have had in prehistoric times a root *huk- which denoted ‘sell’. It has been suggested that this was the source of English hawker ‘peddler’, and with the alternative agent suffix -ster (which originally signified ‘female doer’, but in Low German was used for males) it produced huckster – perhaps borrowed from Middle Dutch hokester.=> hawk
- huckster (n.)
- c. 1200, "petty merchant, peddler" (often contemptuous), from Middle Dutch hokester "peddler," from hoken "to peddle" (see hawk (v.1)) + agent suffix -ster (which was typically feminine in English, but not in Low German). Specific sense of "advertising salesman" is from 1946 novel by Frederick Wakeman. As a verb, from 1590s. Related: Huckstered; huckstering.
Example
- 1. You can huckster over prices on the black market .
- 2. Woody 's response was that an artist has to follow his own intuition , rather than obey some huckster driven by readership surveys .
- 3. The huckster arrives in town , tells all the rubes that disaster impends for them and their families , but says there may be one last chance they can be saved but it will take a lot of money .