Wiktionary

hawker

See also: Hawker

English

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Pronunciation

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Etymology 1

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Probably Borrowed from Low German or Dutch, from Middle Low German hoker and ultimately from the root of huckster.

Noun

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hawker (plural hawkers)

  1. A peddler, a huckster, a person who sells easily transportable goods.
    • 1902, John Buchan, The Outgoing of the Tide:
      The other [witness] was one Sim Doolittle, the fish hawker from Allerfoot, jogging home in his fish cart from Gledsmuir fair.
    • 2011 May, Azhar Ghani, “A Recipe for Success: How Singapore Hawker Centres Came to Be”, in IPS Update‎[1], Singapore: Institute of Policy Studies:
      First-generation hawkers were mostly immigrants from China, and to a smaller extent from India and the Malay Archipelago. A 1950 Hawkers Inquiry Commission report stated that 84 per cent of the hawkers in Singapore were Chinese.
  2. Any dragonfly of the family Aeshnidae; a darner.
Usage notes
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  • In the 19th century, a hawker referred specifically to a itinerant merchant, while a peddler/pedlar referred to a stationary merchant.[1] This distinction is no longer upheld.
Derived terms
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Derived terms
Translations
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Further reading

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Etymology 2

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Inherited from Middle English hawkere, from Old English hafocere, hafecere; by surface analysis, hawk ‎ -er.

Noun

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hawker (plural hawkers)

  1. Someone who breeds and trains hawks and other falcons; a falconer.[2]
Translations
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References

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  1. ^ James A. H. Murray et al., editors (1884–1928), “Hawker, sb.1”, in A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles (Oxford English Dictionary), volume V (H–K), London: Clarendon Press, →OCLC, page 131, column 3.
  2. ^ Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, Springfield, Massachusetts, G.&C. Merriam Co., 1967
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