Andy Rooney
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The Conniving Roots of Shill
The action at the heart of the verb shill—promoting someone or something for pay—is not, on its face, unseemly. After all, that is what marketers and public relations firms do. But when someone is said to be shilling for something or someone there is a distinct note of disapproval, and often the implication that the act is somehow corrupt or dishonest, or that the product or person being promoted is not to be trusted. This connotation is actually the word’s birthright: in the early 1900s, the noun shill referred to a type of con artist, specifically one who aided others in their efforts to part people from their money. For example, a shill might be paid to fake a big win at a casino to make a game look easily winnable. The first uses of the verb shill, appearing around the same time as the noun, show it applying to the kinds of cons shills did, but the term eventually came to be used in cases when someone was simply promoting someone or something. Perhaps fitting for a word with a criminal past, shill has a mysterious origin: it’s thought to be a shortened form of the older synonymous term shillaber, but the etymological trail goes cold there.
Examples of shill in a Sentence
Adrienne So, WIRED, 8 Apr. 2024
Hilarious commercials included Kate McKinnon and a cat shilling Hellmann‘s mayo, and Ben Affleck dancing like an idiot for Dunkin’ Donuts.
—Lorraine Ali, Los Angeles Times, 12 Feb. 2024
And the price tag for all of that talent to shill for a brand — which typically amounts to a day or two’s work for these stars — can get as high as $10 million to $15 million.
—Kevin Dolak, The Hollywood Reporter, 9 Feb. 2024
We were included in an e-mail blast shilling for a political cause whose recipients weren’t bbc’d, or our kids went to the same preschool.
—Bill Scheft, The New Yorker, 1 Feb. 2024
The second phase was professional creators — those who set out to make a living shilling products.
—Carly Olson, Los Angeles Times, 21 Dec. 2023
Why would those black history scholars want to shill for slavery?
—ABC News, 20 Sep. 2023
For many Americans, FTX became the mainstream face of crypto: Celebrities such as NFL star Tom Brady, supermodel Gisele Bündchen and comedian Larry David shilled for the exchange in Super Bowl commercials.
—Lisa Bonos, Washington Post, 1 Oct. 2023
On every flight, we are made to read frequent announcements and walk through the cabin shilling the applications.
—Kwame Anthony Appiah, New York Times, 30 Aug. 2023
Chris Gardner, The Hollywood Reporter, 3 Apr. 2024
Jon Kelly, editor in chief of Puck, similarly defended his reporter, who was portrayed in the piece as a Zucker shill.
—Oliver Darcy, CNN, 25 July 2023
Daniel Colón-Ramos teaches at the medical school, where the sleazy quack, public-health mediocrity, leaky-lab patron, drug-company shill, and cover-up artist Dr. Fauci delivered a commencement address last year.
—Brian T. Allen, National Review, 8 Feb. 2024
At the end of the deposition in 2022, Mr. Trump sought to diminish Ms. Kaplan, shrugging her off as a shill of the Democratic Party.
—Kate Christobek, New York Times, 27 Jan. 2024
When that idea doesn’t pan out, Plan B kicks in: Take a page from the playbook of the Messiah himself and start performing a few magic tricks around town, conning the crowd for shekels, with Elijah as his shill.
—Michael O'Sullivan, Washington Post, 8 Jan. 2024
Ramaswamy and Kennedy aren’t the first would-be candidates unprepared for the campaign spotlight whom rent-seeking political advisors and other shills have paraded past the fans.
—Michael Hiltzik, Los Angeles Times, 31 Aug. 2023
Meanwhile, Byers, the relentless Puck scribe known for breaking news about CNN, who was unfairly maligned as a Zucker shill in Siegel’s story, reported Wednesday night that the opening anecdote — which struck many observers as preposterous — was simply false.
—Oliver Darcy, CNN, 27 July 2023
Best of the web — More stories like this, please, about celebrity shills feeling the pain.
—Ryan Faughnder, Los Angeles Times, 11 July 2023
These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'shill.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
Dictionary Entries Near shill
Cite this Entry
“Shill.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary, Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shill. Accessed 18 Apr. 2024.
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