huckster

Definitions  ·  Examples  ·  Pronunciations  ·  Etymologies  ·  Related  ·  Statistics  ·  Comments  · 
“
While it must be admitted that in the isolated regions of the Middle and Southern States the presence of the huckster is the only factor that makes egg selling possible, it is also true that the peddling huckster of those regions usually disregards the first principles of handling perishable products.

View all »
Definitions (17)

Toggle American Heritage definitions American Heritage Dictionary (7)

  1. noun One who sells wares or provisions in the street; a peddler or hawker.
  2. noun One who uses aggressive, showy, and sometimes devious methods to promote or sell a product.
  3. noun Informal One who writes advertising copy, especially for radio or television.
4 more from this dictionary »

Toggle Century definitions Century Dictionary (4)

Toggle GNU Webster definitions GNU Webster's 1913 (2)

Toggle WordNet definitions WordNet (4)

Toggle elsewhere links Elsewhere on the web

View all »
Examples (50)

  • Michael Cromartie, vice president of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, a Washington, D.C., think tank, said there is a fine line between advertising a church and using what he called "huckster" means to entice outsiders. —  Chicago Defender
  • America's famed hyperventilating huckster, "There's a sucker born every minute." —  independent.com stories
  • They hide behind balkanized billing services, huckster-style contracts, and technical obscurity, all the while creating strained and contentious relationships with those who cross their path. —  BusinessWeek.com --
  • Fairey is a leftist-cheat-hypocrite-jive-ass-Obama-loving huckster: not a bad way to earn a decent living, nowadays. —  Latest Articles
  • These demands for a false front of civility are one of the strategies used by charlatans who want to mask their lack of substance - oh, yes, it would be so goddamned rude to point out that a huckster is lying to you. —  Pharyngula
More examples »
 

Tags

huckster hasn't been tagged yet.

Sign up or sign in to add tags.

Stats

This word has been looked up 135 times.

stop updating
On Twitter

Photos from

flickr images

Add a related word »
Related

Roget's II Roget's II: The New Thesaurus

Allen's Allen's Synonyms and Antonyms

Used in the same context Used in the Same Context

chapman ·  hawker ·  concocter ·  greengrocer ·  distributer ·  monger ·  peddler ·  vender ·  beggar-girl
Roget's II: The New Thesaurus, Third Edition by the Editors of the American Heritage® Dictionary. Copyright © 2003, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. All rights reserved.

Etymologies (3)

Toggle American Heritage etymologies American Heritage Dictionary (1)

  1. Middle English, probably of Low German origin; akin to Middle Dutch hokester.

Toggle Century etymologies Century Dictionary (2)

  1. Sometimes written huxter (cf. baxter), early modern English also hucster; from Middle English hukster, hucster, hukstere, hokestere, hoggester, from Middle Dutch heukster (cf. Swedish hugster, from English ?), with suffix -ster, equivalent to *hucker (not used in English, except in variant form hawker, q. v.), from MD, hucker, a huckster or a mercer, Dutch heuker, a retailer (= Middle Low German hoker = German höcker, a huckster (prob. from D.), = Danish höker, a chandler, huckster, = Swedish hökare, a cheesemonger); prob. literally ‘stooper’ or ‘croucher’ (i. e. a peddler stooping under the burden of his wares), as a particular use of Middle Dutch hucker, a stooper, from the verb represented by English hug (with now deflected meaning) for *huck, from Middle Dutch hucken, stoop, bow, = Low German huken, crouch, = German hocken, crouch, squat, take upon the back, also be idle, = Icelandic hūka, sit on one's hams (later hokra, go bent, crouch, creep, slink about; in modern usage, live as a small farmer); cf. German dial. hucke, Low German hukke, the back, prop, the bent back. See huckaback, huckle, hucklebacked. Connected with hug, and ult. with huck = hook, q. v.
  2. from huckster, n.
 

Pronunciations
Record your own »
/ˈhəkstər/
by American Heritage

Charts
frequency chart

Bubble size: how much this word was used in a year

Bubble height: used more or less than expected, vs. all uses evenly distributed

You can expect to see this word a few times a year.

Recently looked up

newsreader · instatement · nigeria · shriveled · felicity

Recent Favorites

pygopagus · sanglant · Astacus · sweetbread · qualms

Recent Pronunciations

these grunts every eight hours · haul it off to our darkest dungeon · send for a doctor · forget what witticism you were originally going to insert here because you've just banged your knee on your desk · the rest will come naturally