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Peddlers (especially fish merchants) have been called mongers for more than 1000 years. The term traces to a Latin noun meaning "trader." Initially, it was an honorable term, but every profession has its bad apples, and the snake-oil salesmen of the bunch gave monger a bad reputation. By the middle of the 16th century, the term often implied that a merchant was dishonorable and contemptible. Nowadays, monger is typically appended to another word to identify a trader of a particular type. Some combinations (such as fishmonger) suggest respectable commerce, whereas others (such as rumormonger, scandalmonger, and hypemonger) imply that a person is trading or spreading information in a careless or deceptive manner.
Examples of monger in a Sentence
Dave Smith, Fortune, 18 Sep. 2025
Interior of cheese monger specialist cheese shop, Mons cheese mongers, East Dulwich, London, England, UK.
—Holly Ellyatt, CNBC, 17 Sep. 2025
Krista Kafer, Denver Post, 25 Aug. 2025
Harding: Outreach workers, including our outreach team, have been doing their best to walk a line of informing people about the risks without fear mongering.
—Michel Martin, NPR, 14 Aug. 2025
See All Example Sentences for monger
Cite this Entry
“Monger.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/monger. Accessed 20 Sep. 2025.
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