huckster

plural hucksters · alternative dated huxter

1. A peddler or hawker, who sells small items, either door-to-door, from a stall, or in the street.

   drive those china hucksters from the doors

   1731 (date written; published 1745), [Jonathan] Swift, Directions to Servants […], London: […] R[obert] Dodsley, […], and M. Cooper, […], →OCLC

2. Somebody who sells things in an aggressive or showy manner.

   1 more example

   Like most human activities, ballooning has sponsored heroes and hucksters and a good deal in between. For every dedicated scientist patiently recording atmospheric pressure and wind speed while shivering at high altitudes, there is a carnival barker with a bevy of pretty girls willing to dangle from a basket or parachute down to earth.

   2013 June 7, David Simpson, “Fantasy of navigation”, in The Guardian Weekly, volume 188, number 26, page 36

3. One who deceptively sells fraudulent products; snake oil salesman.
4. Somebody who writes advertisements for radio or television.

present singular third person hucksters · participle present huckstering · participle past huckstered · past huckstered · alternative dated huxter

1. intransitiveTo haggle, to wrangle, or to bargain.
2. transitiveTo sell or offer (goods) from place to place, to peddle.
3. transitiveTo promote or sell (goods) in an aggressive, showy manner.

   1 more example

   […] Paul Zindel aroused the hope that he might be a playwright in the Williams mode, one who could cast a kindly light in the dark corners of twisted souls. That is precisely the hope dashed by his latest play, The Secret Affairs of Mildred Wild. Here he is simply huckstering kookdom for cheap laughs, and not producing many of them at that.

   1972 November 27, T.E.K., “Kook in a Candy Store”, in Time, volume 100, number 22, Chicago, Ill.: Time Inc., The Theater, page 73