Word of the day: huckster

The word of the day is huckster: 

1. A retailer of small goods, in a petty shop or booth, or at a stall; a pedlar, a hawker. 
a. Applied to a woman. 
b. Without distinction of sex. (The ordinary use.) 
c. As term of reproach: A regrater, an engrosser of corn, etc.; a broker, a middleman. 
2.a. trans. and fig. A person ready to make his profit of anything in a mean or petty way; one who basely barters his services, etc., for gain; a mercenary; an overreacher of others.
b. An advertising agent chiefly concerned with the preparation of advertising programmes for radio broadcasting. (OED)


"Both she and Corinne, of course, are doomed to fail, Farmiga knowing full well—as Katharine Hepburn knew, and as Barbara Stanwyck showed, when she played a preacher, caught between sincerity and hucksterism, in “The Miracle Woman” (1931)—that the tussle of flesh and spirit is never done, and that the quenching of all appetite still leaves us with a mysterious thirst."

 - Anthony Lane, "Devotions: 'Higher Ground' and 'One Day'", 29 August 2011 The New Yorker