Definitions
American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
- n. The work of a colporteur.
Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia
- n. The work carried on by colporteurs; the distribution by gift or sale of Bibles and other religious literature.
Wiktionary
- n. the distribution or selling of publications via carriers, particularly devotional literature
GNU Webster's 1913
- n. The distribution of religious books, tracts, etc., by colporteurs.
Etymologies
- 1840s, from French colportage, from colporteur (1723). (Wiktionary)
Examples
““Cuisine et littérature de colportage en France au XVIIIème siècle.””
“You may think it a slight thing to prepare a lucky volume, and, tapping Fame familiarly on the shoulder, engage her to undertake its colportage throughout the different countries of the globe.”
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 12, No. 28, July, 1873
“Bapt. state conv. 1879-81; chaplain, C.S. A.; gen'l supt. army colportage for N.C. troops, 1862-65; Episcopalian; later Baptist.”
“As soon as it was practicable, after the emancipation of the negroes of North Carolina, together with the Negroes of the rest of the Southern States, the American Baptist Publication Society, with headquarters in Philadelphia, began its colportage and missionary work among them.”
“They agreed to give support in part to a missionary to do Sunday School mission and colportage work in that section of the State.”
“We not only sold Bibles, but managed every other phase of our missionary work, and yet it was real colportage work.”
“On Monday I went back to my colportage, but that night I was taken with a sharp attack of bronchitis, with high fever, and obliged to keep my room at the hotel.”
“The figures do not include the large sums expended annually in the colportage work of Bible and tract societies, in Sunday school missions, and in the building of churches and parsonages.”
“Its object being to promote evangelical religion by means of the Bible, printing press, colportage and the Sunday school makes it an institution unfounded upon financial consideration to benefit a few.”
“The figures do not include the large sums expended annually in the colportage work of”
Lists
These user-created lists contain the word ‘colportage’.
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A Salpicon of Random Palavery
More random words and phrases that reflect my eclectic, stream-of-consciousess style of word and idea gathering.
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Tweets
Looking for tweets for colportage.
sionnach See colporteur. Sep 24, 2009
hernesheir Definition should include perfoming covers of Cole Porter's music. Sep 23, 2009
hernesheir Cheap popular literature originally sold by hawkers or itinerants called colporteurs. Sep 23, 2009