mystery-monger

noun

A person who deliberately or habitually mystifies others.

Meanings

nounmystery-monger (plural mystery-mongers)

plural mystery-mongers

  1. 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 Dragons
    2 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 Parasite

    But 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
APA

mystery-monger. (n.d.). In WatkinsX Dictionary. Retrieved November 4, 2026, from https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mystery-monger

MLA

“mystery-monger.” WatkinsX Dictionary, https://dictionary.watkinsx.com/word/mystery-monger. Accessed November 4, 2026.

Chicago

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.