Talk:rainmaker
McCullough, in The Path Between the Seas, calls Ferdinand de Lessups a rainmaker.
The following discussion has been moved from Wiktionary:Requests for cleanup (permalink).
This discussion is no longer live and is left here as an archive. Please do not modify this conversation, but feel free to discuss its conclusions.
The wording of the definitions is an embarrassment to Wiktionary, IMO. At least two senses seem virtually identical. Some senses may not be attestable. DCDuring TALK 22:29, 22 August 2015 (UTC)
Done. — SGconlaw (talk) 19:29, 8 September 2018 (UTC)
Used in a fraudulent sense?[edit]
Sense #3 presents "rainmaker" as a positive term: someone who brings business to a client. I'm far more familiar with the sense of someone who claims to be bringing business to a client, but actually just takes credit for the client's own good fortunes, as described in Wikipedia's list of confidence tricks. I do have a citation of this sense, albeit of the verb "to rainmake" rather than the noun "rainmaker", in a 2004 episode of The Wire, "Middle Ground":
"A guy says if you pay him, he can make it rain. You pay him. If and when it rains, he takes the credit. If and when it doesn't, he comes up with reasons for you to pay more. Clay Davis rainmade you."
I'm not particularly familiar with Wiktionary conventions and practices, so didn't feel comfortable being bold and adding this sense. 50.79.5.81 17:11, 19 February 2020 (UTC)