Huckster

Particularly in the United States, a huckster is a pejorative for a person who sells something or serves biased interests, using pushy or showy tactics.

Etymology

The original meaning of huckster is a person a who sells small articles, either door-to-door or from a stall or small store, like a peddler or hawker. The word was in use circa 1200 (as "huccsteress") and was spelled hukkerye, hukrie, hockerye, huckerstrye or hoxterye at one time or another. The word was still in use in England in the 1840s, when it appeared as a black market occupation. The word is related to the Middle Dutch hokester, hoekster and the Middle Low German höker, but appears earlier than any of these. In the United States, there developed a connotation of trickery – the huckster might trick others into buying cheap imitation products as if they were the real thing.

Other meanings

In Scotland

In Scotland, the term huckster referred to a person, usually a woman, who bought goods, watered them down, and resold them in tiny quantity to others who were too poor to buy quality products available at market value. These items tended to be in the poorer quality range since economy was paramount. Scots burghs often felt the need to control hucksters because they operated without a stall, on the economic fringes. In particular, they were subject of accusations of forestalling, in this case the practice of buying goods wholesale, "before the stall" and therefore before tax was paid.