User:Jnestorius/huckstery

English

Alternative spellings

• huxtery

Etymology

• huckster + -ery

Noun

huckstery (countable and uncountable, plural hucksteries)

1. cheap assorted goods such as those sold by a huckster
   • William Carleton (1857) The Black Baronet; or, the Chronicles of Ballytrain Chapter XIV "Crackenfudge put upon a Wrong Scent"

     It was evident, also, that the proprietor dealt in huckstery, as he saw a shop in which there was bacon, meal, oats, eggs, potatoes, bread, and such other articles as are usually to be found in small establishments of the kind.

   • ibid. Chapter XXXI "The Priest goes into Corbet's House very like a Thief"

     His wife was weighing huckstery with her back to the counter

2. occupation or trade of a huckster
   • (January 1845) Anthologia Germanica, 19: "Miscellaneous Poems" in Dublin University Magazine Vol.25 No.145 p.95 (Dublin: William Curry Jun. & Co.)

     He might go back to the shop, and set up in the huckstery line

3. small shop or stall which sells huckstery
4. mean, disreputable, or dishonest business
   • "Ethnickus" (6 September 1806) "Jewish Predominance" in Cobbett's Weekly Political Register Vol.X No.10 p.213

     We see that every soul of them, male or female, takes with alacrity to traffick, from the children that sell shoe-strings and pick pockets near the Bank, up to the richest of the race.—It is all a nursery of commerce; the fountain of brokerage, exchange and barter; and the living principle of all kinds of jobbing and huckstery.

   • (1811) Analysis of a new system of general education p.87

     This market may assist the farmer to dispose of his butter and cheese, as well as of his corn; but care shall be taken, that it does not degenerate into a huckstery.

   • Theodore Parker (29 May 1851) "The Duty of Ministers under the Fugitive Slave Law"; speech at the Ministerial Conference of the American Unitarian Association; published in Additional speeches, addresses, and occasional sermons Vol.1 p.59 (1855) (Boston: Little, Brown & Co.)

     A certain lawyer's office in Boston became a huckstery of kidnappers' warrants.

5. public relations, spin
6. an instance of spin or misleading advocacy

References

• Fredrik Gadde (Ph.D. thesis, University of Lund, 1910) On the History and Use of the Suffixes -ery (-ry), -age, and -ment in English pp.30,37