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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 Idaho was named, in the eighteen-sixties, by a frontiersman huckster who claimed to speak Shoshone. — Joshua Jelly-schapiro, The New Yorker, "How New York Was Named," 13 Apr. 2021 Cardi B might have been better off accusing Owens of being a cynical huckster, using performative outrage to market her distinctive brand of regressive, self-loathing conservatism. — Dani Di Placido, Forbes, "Cardi B And Candace Owens Trade Insults Over Grammys ‘WAP’ Performance," 17 Mar. 2021 That’s Maxwell Lord (Pedro Pascal), a TV infomercial huckster whose get-rich-quick pitch is a Ponzi scheme on the verge of collapse. — Sean P. Means, The Salt Lake Tribune, "Review: ‘Wonder Woman 1984’ is a dismal step backward for DC’s iconic superheroine," 25 Dec. 2020 But those who mock Donald Trump as a mere huckster or illusionist are forgetting that, in a whole nation full of such people, that is not necessarily a downside. — Christopher Caldwell, The New Republic, "The Biden Popular Front Is Doomed to Unravel," 23 Nov. 2020 Simulmatics’s creator and president was a former Madison Avenue advertising and public relations executive, Edward L. Greenfield—a glad-handing, scotch-drinking, Pall Mall–smoking huckster, as Lepore describes him. — James Gleick, The New York Review of Books, "Simulating Democracy," 22 Sep. 2020 The father, Rory (Jude Law), is a British finance broker with a huckster’s appetite for big bets (and a talent for big losses). — Taylor Antrim, Vogue, "Carrie Coon on The Nest, ’80s Fashion, and Filming During COVID," 18 Sep. 2020 Far-right huckster Jacob Wohl has been accused of launching a robocall scheme aimed at voter suppression. — Haley Victory Smith, Washington Examiner, "Jacob Wohl accused of robocall scheme aimed at voter suppression," 27 Aug. 2020 See also the creation, by several Jewish huckster immigrants, of the motion-picture business in New York. — David Mamet, National Review, "Max the Hamster," 20 Aug. 2020

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.