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Pamphlets—unbound printed publications with no covers or with paper covers—are published about all kinds of subjects, but our word pamphlet traces back to one particular document. It derives from the title of a short Latin love poem of the 12th century: Pamphilus, seu De Amore, which can be translated as "Pamphilus, or On Love." The name Pamphilus referred to a Greek god whose name means "loved by all." Following from this, the original pamphlets were handwritten poems, tracts, or treatises, often consisting of several pages bound together. Pamphleteer, which can be both a noun and a verb, combines pamphlet with the -eer suffix found in such words as engineer and puppeteer.
Examples of pamphleteer in a Sentence
Time, 9 July 2025
By Timothy O'Grady July 8, 2024 Belfast: city of riveters, inventors, linen mill girls, boxers, pamphleteers, revolutionaries, Lambeg drummers, Irish bagpipers, mission hall preachers, and mustachioed burghers with pocket watches.
—Timothy O'Grady, Condé Nast Traveler, 8 July 2024
However Elena’s modelling career takes off, while Eddie spends his days wandering the streets of New York getting into fights with pamphleteers.
—Jessica Kiang, Variety, 19 May 2024
His politics have been likened to those of William Cobbett, the English pamphleteer and working-class advocate.
—Nick Bowlin, Harper's Magazine, 30 Mar. 2024
Palmer's narrator, Mycroft Canner, is a paroled mass murderer with an intermittent grip on sanity who writes in the style of an 18th-century pamphleteer, complete with humble appeals to the reader, veiled swipes at censors, and pauses for Socratic dialog.
—Gregory Barber, Wired, 10 Feb. 2022
Now Corliss Lamont, an American pamphleteer, challenged the law.
—Anupam Chander, Wired, 21 Sep. 2020
When recounting the music of the Revolutionary period, Meacham and McGraw mostly make do with repurposed hymns; poets, and pamphleteers like Thomas Paine, held far greater sway than did songwriters.
—Allison Stewart, chicagotribune.com, 11 July 2019
When recounting the music of the Revolutionary period, Meacham and McGraw mostly make do with repurposed hymns; poets, and pamphleteers like Thomas Paine, held far greater sway than did songwriters.
—Allison Stewart, chicagotribune.com, 11 July 2019
Daniel Henninger, WSJ, 12 July 2017
Cite this Entry
“Pamphleteer.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/pamphleteer. Accessed 21 Jul. 2025.
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