Meanings
plural mystery-mongers
- A person who deliberately or habitually mystifies others.
"Curious affair, isn't it?" "Very." "Now, you're a bit of a mystery-monger, Vidal. What's your theory—eh?"
1916, William Le Queux, The Place of Dragons2 more examples
I like none of these mystery-mongers, but the amateur least of all. With the paid performer you may pounce upon him and expose him the instant that you have seen through his trick.
1894, Arthur Conan Doyle, chapter I, in The ParasiteBut I began by calling him a mystery-monger, and it is perhaps time I made good. What I mean is this. Not content with serving up to you philosophic or psychological theories and using them, dramatically, for what they will carry, Pirandello frequently uses them for more than they will carry, and, as I think, deliberately mystifies you, for the sake of “getting away with it” in the confusion.
1925 December, A. B. Walkley, “Pirandello, the Mystery-Monger”, in Vanity Fair, page 58
Origin
Cite this entry
mystery-monger. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mystery-monger
“mystery-monger.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mystery-monger. Accessed November 4, 2026.
WatkinsX Dictionary, s.v. “mystery-monger,” accessed November 4, 2026, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mystery-monger.
Source: mystery-monger on Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.