wheeler-dealer

plural wheeler-dealers · alternative wheeler dealer · alternative wheelerdealer

1. informalA shrewd political or commercial schemer, especially one who is unscrupulous; a hustler; a shady operator.

   It is illegal to buy and sell this sort of item, he says, but not necessarily illegal to buy and sell the containers that they happen to come in. What an unexpected wheeler dealer.

   2024 December 6, Stuart Heritage, “Meet the Rees-Moggs: a bluffer’s guide to the family’s weirdness”, in The Guardian, →ISSN

   1 more example

   Seated at separate tables to underscore their differing levels of involvement with indicted savings and loan wheeler-dealer Charles Keating, the five were fighting to regain reputations earned in a lifetime of public service.

   1990 November 26, Ed Magnuson, Hays Gorey, “You Sold Your Office”, in Time