What is the origin of 'sleep tight'?
Read moreOne of the mysteries of the English language finally explained.
noun
A person who travels about selling goods, typically advertising them by shouting.
‘hawkers and costermongers pushed their little handcarts, crying ‘Bread!’, ‘Fish!’ and ‘Meat pies!’’- ‘The law forbids it, but these street hawkers slaughter animals and sell the meat to the poor.’
- ‘One day soon hawkers will be selling miniature plastic replicas outside.’
- ‘Gradually market traders and hawkers moved in until eventually the tunnel became a seedy backwater.’
- ‘The Municipality is not happy with hawkers who sell on street corners in the industrial area.’
- ‘City authorities will plan to wipe out the sight of beggars and hawkers selling flowers or newspapers at intersections.’
- ‘The city of Johannesburg is developing a programme to assist hawkers who sell food on the streets of the city.’
- ‘To meet the family's financial needs, his 19 year-old son quit school and now works as a hawker selling vegetables.’
- ‘The hawkers sell all and sundry: from handkerchiefs to electronic goods.’
- ‘Mehmood, their father, is a hawker selling odd food items.’
- ‘Hawkers came to sell their wares in small row boats near the cruise boats.’
- ‘Tickets were sold in advance for $45, but street hawkers were selling them for about $200.’
- ‘Nearly 25 per cent of the collected waste was sold to hawkers.’
- ‘At night, it turns into a massive open air cafe area, with dozens of food hawkers selling a variety of food, from the traditional to the modern.’
- ‘Shopfronts and stalls were open, with hawkers shouting and displaying their wares for the crowds.’
- ‘Street corners are dotted with hawkers selling their pies hot from portable ovens.’
- ‘At the resorts, hawkers sell designer replicas and reproductions to a ready eastern European market, as well as the growing number of Germans and British visitors.’
- ‘A wide range of commodities ranging from fruits to light bulbs are sold by enterprising hawkers.’
- ‘At the entrances to subway stations, hawkers who used to sell city maps have shifted their focus to the rain business.’
- ‘The crowd swelled as the day progressed, to the great pleasure of hawkers selling eatables and tea.’
- ‘On the way out of the chamber afterwards several different party journals were being sold by hawkers.’
trader, seller, dealer, purveyor, vendor, tout, barrow boy, door-to-door salesman, travelling salesman, pedlarView synonyms
Origin
Early 16th century: probably from Low German or Dutch and related to huckster.
Pronunciation
noun
1A falconer.
2A slender-bodied dragonfly that remains airborne for long periods, typically patrolling a particular stretch of water.
Aeshnidae, Gomphidae, and other families, order Odonata: several genera
- ‘The hawkers, or dragon nymphs, are longer and thinner and they patrol up and down looking out for prey on which to swoop.’
Origin
Old English hafocere, from hafoc ‘hawk’.
