Definition of HUCKSTER

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Noun

Hawkers, peddlers, and hucksters have been selling things out of the back of wagons, in narrow alleys, and on the fringes of towns for years (though nowadays, they're more likely to plug their wares on television or the Internet). Of those three words-"hawker," "peddler," or "huckster"-the one that has been around the longest in English is "huckster." It has been with us for over 800 years, and it derives from the Middle Dutch word hokester, which in turn comes from the verb hoeken, meaning "to peddle." "Peddler" (or "pedlar") was first attested in the 14th century, and this sense of "hawker" has only been appearing in English texts since the early 1500s.

Examples of huckster in a Sentence

Noun

hucksters outside the auditorium selling everything from key chains to life-size cutouts of the rock star

Recent Examples on the Web: Noun

Gass may have been mocking religious hucksters but the speech of the land was part of him, and his ranging, learned works of literary criticism sometimes remind you of a stem-winding tent revivalist evangelizing for Rilke or Rabelais. — Sam Sacks, WSJ, "‘The William H. Gass Reader’ Review: The Speech of the Land Was Part of Him," 1 Nov. 2018 But Cooper was a huckster who took more than a swig of his own Kool-Aid. — Andrew Stuttaford, WSJ, "‘Pale Horse Rider’ Review: A Huckster at the Mic," 19 Sep. 2018 First came Michael Wolff, the author and journalistic huckster whose book making bold claims about what happened behind the scenes at the White House was irresistible for the left and the media alike. — Aaron Blake, Washington Post, "James Comey, Stormy Daniels and the flawed vessels commandeering the Trump resistance," 19 Apr. 2018 In 2011 according to the Washington Post, a congressional probe found at least 1,800 counterfeit parts, with an estimated 1,000,000 or more counterfeit parts hiding in the Pentagon's global spare parts system, sold by hucksters making a cheap buck. — Kyle Mizokami, Popular Mechanics, "The Pentagon Uses Plant DNA to Catch Counterfeit Parts," 21 Nov. 2016 Online, an army of braying hucksters — digital-branding specialists, celebrities in the middle of breakdowns, the president — saw away at my capacity for complex thought. — Daniel Kolitz, New York Times, "Letter of Recommendation: Timehop," 26 June 2018 There’s no disputing that the fledgling crypto industry is filled with hucksters, con artists, and get-rich-quick scammers. — Robert Hackett, Fortune, "The Ledger: Facebook's Self-Interested Crypto Reversal," 30 June 2018 What can regular users, civic-minded voters with earnest political values, do to keep from getting rolled by the online leviathan or the hucksters swimming around inside of it? — Gregory Krieg, CNN, "Don't want to get rolled on Facebook? Know your own politics.," 10 Apr. 2018 Hopefully the crypto mania will result in a shakeout separating good investors set on improving society from the greedy hucksters masquerading behind that narrative. — Polina Marinova, Fortune, "Term Sheet -- Monday, May 14," 14 May 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'huckster.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.