Etymology

huckster

H4U1C3K5S1T1E1R1

Today it means: A peddler or hawker, who sells small items, either door-to-door, from a stall, or in the street. Full definition →

Middle English hukster ← Middle Low German höken ← Middle Dutch hokester
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The story

  1. Proto-Indo-European · derived from*kuk-néh₂
  2. Proto-Germanic · derived from*huk-
  3. Middle Dutch · derived fromhokester
  4. Middle Low German · derived fromhöken“to peddle”
  5. Middle English · inherited fromhukster
  6. English todayhuckster

From Middle English hukster, probably of Low German or Dutch origin, from Middle Low German höken (“to peddle”) or Middle Dutch hokester, itself from hoeken (“to peddle, bend, bear on the back”), all from Proto-Germanic *huk-, probably related to *hūkan- (“to squat”), from *hūkkan-, back-formed from the iterative *huk(k)ōn-, from Proto-Indo-European *kuk-néh₂, from *kewk- (“to curve, bend”) (also the source of English high). Compare hawkster. By surface analysis, huck + -ster.

Words from the same roots

Proto-Indo-European*kuk-néh₂ all →

hunker

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.