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Noun

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

Recent Examples on the Web: Noun In the past 50 years the number of pejorative monger terms has proliferated. — Stephen Miller, WSJ, 25 Apr. 2021 Some publications are using Amazon Sidewalk as an opportunity to fear-monger customers who already have Amazon IoT devices set up throughout and around their homes. — Patrick Moorhead, Forbes, 7 June 2021 For hundreds of years, writers have coined monger words. — Stephen Miller, WSJ, 25 Apr. 2021 Texas officials like Sens. Ted Cruz, John Cornyn and Gov. Greg Abbott have used these trips to fear-monger constituents about children seeking asylum and gaslight Americans about who really created the challenge at our border today. — Julián Castro, CNN, 12 Apr. 2021 Most importantly, shockingly, and excitingly of all, the final minutes of the season one finale also reveal the true identity of local gossip-monger Lady Whistledown. — Andrea Park, Marie Claire, 30 Dec. 2020 The author spent a year learning the finer points of cheesemaking in America, visiting caves, restaurants and monger competitions. — New York Times, 1 Dec. 2020 Also aboard is another novelist, a mystery-monger named Kelvin Kranz (Dan Algrant), who outsells Alice, many times over. — Anthony Lane, The New Yorker, 4 Dec. 2020 On Thursday night, conservative provocateurand conspiracy-monger Alex Jones led another boisterous rally outside Maricopa County Tabulation and Election Center in downtown Phoenix. — Ronald J. Hansen, The Arizona Republic, 6 Nov. 2020 Recent Examples on the Web: Verb The conspiracy mongering that his tomb is empty is all part of the conspiracy mongering going on on Reddit and 4chan. — Chancellor Agard, EW.com, 28 May 2020 Timothée Chalamet plays the English prince as a beautiful melancholy youth, whose withdrawal from court is prompted more by his political alienation from his war-mongering father, Henry IV (a louche Ben Mendelsohn), than pure hedonism. — The Economist, 4 Nov. 2019 The exchange between Pompeo and Yang came in reaction to a series of conspiracy-mongering tweets posted last week by Zhao Lijian, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson. — Jane Li, Quartz, 17 Mar. 2020 George Clooney's 2005 film about broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow's efforts to bring down fear-mongering U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy amid the heightened paranoia of the early 1950s, Good Night, and Good Luck, is coming to the stage. — David Rooney, The Hollywood Reporter, 4 Mar. 2020 National cable networks will devote hours to rumor mongering before the deadline and dissecting what actually happened afterward. — Jeff Mcdonald, ExpressNews.com, 5 Feb. 2020 Fear-mongering impacted Asian business districts like Toronto’s three Chinatowns during the SARS outbreak, but current trolls are just getting started. — Ellen Mcgirt, Fortune, 29 Jan. 2020 Her fear-mongering papers over an ignorance that would lead her to adopt a policy with a dangerous economic impact and absolutely no environmental benefit. — David L. Bahnsen, National Review, 28 Jan. 2020 While voice call facilities are still in place, mobile internet was snapped again on August 18 due to concerns over rumor-mongering on social media. — Mukhtar Ahmad, Helen Regan And Manveena Suri, CNN, 15 Oct. 2019

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