Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

  • noun A peddler of devotional literature.

from The Century Dictionary.

  • noun A person employed by a Bible or tract society, or the like, to distribute gratuitously or sell at low rates Bibles and various other religious publications.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

  • noun A hawker; specifically, one who travels about selling and distributing religious tracts and books.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A peddler of publications, especially of religious books

Etymologies

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

[French, alteration (influenced by col, neck, from the idea that peddlers carry their wares on trays suspended from straps around their necks) of Old French comporteur, from comporter, to conduct, peddle; see comport.]

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

French colporteur, from comporteur by influence of col ("neck") (re-analyzed as col + porteur ("porter")), from verb comporter, from Latin comportō (English comport).

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Examples

Comments

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  • This guy has done some great tunes.

    February 21, 2007

  • A peddler of devotional literature.

    April 9, 2008

  • I actually clicked on this page to make the same ridiculous joke I did, apparently, 1 year ago.

    April 9, 2008

  • Oh, I thought it was related to the Colbert report.

    April 9, 2008