salesmanship

[seylz-muh n-ship]

noun

the technique of selling a product: They used a promotional gimmick that was the last word in salesmanship.
adeptness at creating interest in new ideas, products, methods, etc.: The only ingredient lacking in the system was salesmanship.

Origin of salesmanship

1875–80; salesman + -ship; cf. -manship

Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2018

Examples from the Web for salesmanship

Contemporary Examples of salesmanship

This is salesmanship, and of the most ingeniously manipulative kind.
David's Book Club: The Souls of Black Folk
David Frum
May 5, 2013
It is an unconvincing bit of salesmanship that betrays little perspective on himself, let alone the presence of core convictions.
GOP Primary Results: A Suicidal Cage Match
John Avlon
February 29, 2012
But it was WMD, of course, that was the principal tool in the administration's salesmanship of the war.
Rumsfeld, Still Defiant
Howard Kurtz
February 2, 2011

Historical Examples of salesmanship

In the field of salesmanship, engineering training is growing in importance.
College Teaching
Paul Klapper
The quality of salesmanship really had nothing to do with the subject-matter.
The Wall Street Girl
Frederick Orin Bartlett
And every time I try to say anything about Ernest's salesmanship she takes my head off.
The Forbidden Trail
Honor Willsie
You have the talent, but you don't have the salesmanship to promote it.
Summer Snow Storm
Adam Chase
A school of salesmanship for women has met with a like success.
The New Education
Scott Nearing

British Dictionary definitions for salesmanship

salesmanship

noun

the technique, skill, or ability of selling
the work of a salesman

Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012

Word Origin and History for salesmanship

n.

1853, from salesman + -ship.

The modern system of salesmanship has become so much like persecution reduced to a science, that it is quite a luxury to be allowed the use of your own discretion, without being dragooned, by a shopkeeper's deputy, into looking at what you do not care to see, or buying what you would not have. A man in his sane mind, with the usual organs of speech, has a right to be treated as if he knows what he wants, and is able to ask for it. ["The Literary World," Feb. 26, 1853]

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2010 Douglas Harper