colportage
Americannoun
Etymology
Origin of colportage
1840–50; < French, equivalent to colport ( er ) to hawk (literally, carry on the neck; see col, port 5) + -age -age
Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
The figures do not include the large sums expended annually in the colportage work of Bible and tract societies, in Sunday school missions, and in the building of churches and parsonages.
From A History of American Christianity by Leonard Woolsey Bacon
"But I'm planning entirely different things, and no one will persuade me to work for the colportage!"
From My Life and My Efforts by Gunther Olesch
The crazy things he was told here he regarded as extraordinarily well suited for his colportage.
From My Life and My Efforts by Gunther Olesch
But what he published was indeed the lowest form of colportage.
From My Life and My Efforts by Gunther Olesch
On Monday I went back to my colportage, but that night I was taken with a sharp attack of bronchitis, with high fever, and obliged to keep my room at the hotel.
From The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I by William James Stillman
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
