huckster

American  

[huhk-ster] / ˈhʌk stər /

noun

1. a retailer of small articles, especially a peddler of fruits and vegetables; hawker.

2. a person who employs showy methods to effect a sale, win votes, etc..

   the crass methods of political hucksters.

3. a cheaply mercenary person.

4. Informal.

   1. a persuasive and aggressive salesperson.

   2. a person who works in the advertising industry, especially one who prepares aggressive advertising for radio and television.

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verb (used with or without object)

hucksters, present (3rd person singular) huckstered, past participle, past huckstering present participle

1. to deal, as in small articles, or to make petty bargains.

   to huckster fresh corn; to huckster for a living.

2. to sell or promote in an aggressive and flashy manner.

huckster British  

/ ˈhʌkstə /

noun

1. a person who uses aggressive or questionable methods of selling

2. rare a person who sells small articles or fruit in the street

3. a person who writes for radio or television advertisements

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verb

1. (tr) to peddle

2. (tr) to sell or advertise aggressively or questionably

3. to haggle (over)

Other Word Forms

Derived Forms

• hucksterism
  noun
• hucksterish
  adjective

Inflected Forms

Participles

• huckstering
  present
• huckstered
  past

Conjugated Forms

Present

• huckster
  simple
• hucksters
  simple
• have huckstered
  perfect
• has huckstered
  perfect
• am huckstering
  progressive
• are huckstering
  progressive
• is huckstering
  progressive
• have been huckstering
  perfect progressive
• has been huckstering
  perfect progressive

Past

• huckstered
  simple
• had huckstered
  perfect
• was huckstering
  progressive
• were huckstering
  progressive
• had been huckstering
  perfect progressive

Future

• will huckster
  simple
• will have huckstered
  perfect
• will be huckstering
  progressive
• will have been huckstering
  perfect progressive

Etymology

Origin of huckster

1150–1200; Middle English huccstere (perhaps cognate with Middle Dutch hokester ), equivalent to hucc- haggle (cognate with dialectal German hucken to huckster) + -stere -ster

Explanation

A huckster is someone who tries to sell you something that's not very well made, or isn't worth the price. If someone tries to sell you a bottle of Love Potion #9, call him a huckster. While a huckster is primarily a seller of cheap goods, like the people who sell imitation luxury handbags and watches on city sidewalks, you can also use the word to talk about extremely pushy salespeople. If you feel so pressured to make an offer on a new car that you leave the dealership feeling frustrated and daunted, you might say, "There's no way I'm buying a car from that huckster."

Example Sentences

See Examples For:

huckster hucksters huckstered huckstering

Lon Chaney plays a huckster circus performer who pretends to have no arms.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jan. 7, 2025

He doesn’t even believe half of what he says because he’s a huckster and B.S. artist.

From Salon ● Mar. 8, 2024

It turned out that Neumann was a world-class huckster and the company couldn’t justify such a big valuation, and WeWork aborted the IPO.

From Slate ● Nov. 8, 2023

The musical, which finds laughs in a worrisome alliance between a hick and a huckster, features a score by a pair of well-regarded Nashville songwriters: Brandy Clark and Shane McAnally.

From New York Times ● Nov. 14, 2022

I became a huckster like the ones that had fascinated me.

From "Milkweed" by Jerry Spinelli

As much as Silicon Valley hucksters are vying to invent a cure for death, I doubt we’ll see that in the near future.

From Salon ● May 8, 2026

The Strip was once a magical place where innocents like Dorothy flocked to get into trouble, often in encounters with sleight-of-hand hucksters like Professor Marvel.

From Los Angeles Times ● Sep. 3, 2025

The cryptocurrency industry is “rife with fraud and hucksters and grifters”, one of the United States’ top financial regulators has told the BBC.

From BBC ● Sep. 24, 2024

More than a century ago, hucksters peddled magic elixirs from wagons.

From Seattle Times ● Jan. 31, 2024

The hucksters cried above the traffic sounds and I seemed to hear them from a distance, unsure of what they said.

From "Invisible Man" by Ralph Ellison

Now was the time to unlock the sealed fountain of Royal bounty, which had been infamously monopolised and huckstered, and to let it flow at large upon the whole people. 

From Thoughts on the Present Discontents, and Speeches, etc. by Morley, Henry

She would have huckstered around the neighborhood, and made a little income while it lasted; but now she had no heart for it.

From Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science Volume 12, No. 31, October, 1873 by Various

What wilt thou pay, thou huckstered That I let thee live another year?

From Poems By The Way & Love Is Enough by Morris, William

These loaves, which were huckstered along the lines by venders from Richmond, it must be understood, were not full-size, but a compromise between a loaf and a roll.

From The Story of a Cannoneer Under Stonewall Jackson by Moore, Edward A.

District Judge Nina Wang about the huckstering, arguing that it was proof that Lindell wasn’t taking the matter seriously enough.

From Slate ● Jun. 25, 2025

Four reputationally dinged coaching greats were here in the Midwest Region, four semi-soiled huckstering representatives of the system, in Carolina’s Roy Williams, Auburn’s Bruce Pearl, Kentucky’s John Calipari and Houston’s Kelvin Sampson.

From Washington Post ● Mar. 29, 2019

All during June we get Milken, a former federal fraud felon huckstering for cancer.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 6, 2018

Skewering Madison Avenue for 60 Years FOR six decades, a magazine has been putting the “Mad” in Madison Avenue by lampooning — and frequently harpooning — the huckstering of the advertising industry.

From New York Times ● Oct. 28, 2012

But the drivers seemed somehow menacing to her, with their fake friendliness and huckstering offers of a ride.

From "The Hidden Gallery" by Maryrose Wood