A peddler, Brit. pedlar, also known as a canvasser, solicitor, or monger (with negative connotations since the 16th century), is a travelling vendor of goods. Dialect areas of England British English (BrE) is a term used to differentiate between the form of the English language used in the British Isles and those used elsewhere. ... (15th century - 16th century - 17th century - more centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 16th century was that century which lasted from 1501 to 1600. ... Travel is the transport of people on a trip or journey. ... A vendor is one who sells something. ... A good in economics is any physical object (natural or man-made) or service that, upon consumption, increases utility, and therefore can be sold at a price in a market. ...

History

The origin of the word, known in English since 1225, is unknown.

Peddlers usually travelled by foot, carrying their wares, or by means of a person- or animal-drawn cart or wagon (making the peddler a hawker). A simple wooden cart in Australia A cart transporting watermelons in Harbin, China. ... A wagon (in old British English waggon) is a wheeled vehicle, ordinarily with four wheels, usually pulled by an animal such as a horse, mule or ox, which was used for transport of heavy goods in the past. ...

Modern peddlers may use motorized vehicles to transport themselves and their commodities. Typically, they operate door-to-door or at organized events such as fairs. Door to Door is the sixth and final studio album by American new wave band The Cars, released in 1987. ... A fair is a gathering of people to display or trade produce or other goods, to parade or display animals and often to enjoy associated carnival or funfair entertainment. ...

In many economies this work was often left to nomadic minorities, such as gypsies, travellers, or Yeniche, offering a varied assortment of goods and services, both evergreens and (notoriously suspicious) novelties. Peddlers sometimes doubled as performers, supposed healers, or fortune-tellers. The Roma people (singular Rom; sometimes Rroma, Rrom), often referred to as Gipsies, are a heterogeneous ethnic group who live primarily in Southern and Eastern Europe, Western Asia, Latin America, southern states of North America and the Middle East. ... Irish Travellers are a nomadic or itinerant people of Irish origin living in Ireland, Great Britain and the United States. ... The Yeniche, or Jenisch, are the third-largest population of nomadic people (or Travelers) in Europe, living mostly in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and parts of France. ... The performing arts include theater, motion pictures, drama, comedy, music, dance, opera, magic and the marching arts, such as brass bands, etc. ... A healer is someone who purports to aid recovery from ill health. ... For prophecy in the context of revealed religions see Prophet. ...

While peddlers had a significant role in supplying isolated populations even with fairly basic and diverse goods such as pots and pans, horses, and news, their market share has in modern times been drastically reduced as increasing density of population and buying power encouraged sedentary, even specialized sales points, while modern transport, mail order, refrigeration and other technology allow even rural clients alternative channels of purchase. In economics, purchasing power refers to the amount of goods and services a given amount of money -- or, more generally, liquid assets -- can buy. ... Sedentism is the shift of people who live in non-permanent settlements to living in permanent settlements. ... Concept B is a specialization of concept A if and only if: every instance of concept B is also an instance of concept A; and there are instances of concept A which are not instances of concept B. For instance, Bird is a specialization of Animal because every bird is... Sales, or the activity of selling, forms an integral part of commercial activity. ... Mail order is a term which describes the buying of goods or services by mail delivery. ... It has been suggested that Refrigerator be merged into this article or section. ... ... Rural area in Dalarna, Sweden Qichun, a rural town in Hubei province, China Rural areas are sparsely settled places away from the influence of large cities and towns. ...

In the United States, the era of the traveling peddler probably peaked in the decades just before the Civil War. The large advances in industrial mass production and freight transportation as a result of the war laid the groundwork for the beginnings of modern retail and distribution networks. Further, the rise of popular mail order catalogues (such as Montgomery Ward which began in 1872) offered another way for people in rural or other remote areas to obtain items not readily available in local stores.

In the modern economy a new breed of peddler, generally encouraged to dress respectably to inspire confidence with the general public, has been sent into the field as an aggressive form of direct marketing by companies pushing their specific products, sometimes to help launch novelties, sometimes on a permanent basis. In a few cases this has even been used as the core of a business and on a large scale. Direct marketing is a discipline within marketing that involves the planned recording, analysis and tracking of individual customers (business-to-business or consumer) responses and transactions for the purpose of developing and prolonging mutually profitable customer relationships. ...

Types and specific names

Tinware was manufactured in Berlin, Connecticut, as early as 1770, and tin, steel and iron goods were peddled from Connecticut through the North American colonies- the Connecticut clock maker and clock peddler was the 18th-century embodiment of Yankee ingenuity.

Literal compounds formed from these synonyms are:

• Fishmonger
• Costermonger
• Ironmonger

Metaphoric compounds, most pejorative, formed from these synonyms are: A fishmonger is someone who sells fish, although modern supermarkets are reducing the need for them. ... A costermonger was a street seller of fruit and vegetables. ...

• Warmonger, likely more widespread than any of the literal uses
• Disease mongering
• Merit-monger, in the 1700s a "do-gooder"
• Gossip monger (a quidnunc)
• Rumor monger
• Scandal monger
• Flesh monger

Names, most archaic, of product- or industry-specific types of peddlers include: A warmonger is, pejoratively, someone who is anxious to encourage a people or nation to go to war. ... Disease mongering is derogatory term used to refer to a controversial policy by pharmaceutical companies consisting of not only advertising the drug that the company is selling, but also of promoting the disease that the drug is aimed at treating. ... Events and trends The Bonneville Slide blocks the Columbia River near the site of present-day Cascade Locks, Oregon with a land bridge 200 feet (60 m) high. ... The Right Honourable Patrick Gordon Campbell, 3rd Baron Glenavy (June 6, 1913 - November 9, 1980), better known simply as Patrick Campbell, was a British journalist, humorist and television personality. ...

• Chandler
• Collier
• Tippler
• Milliner
• Lanier (now only a surname, formerly a peddler of wool

Names, some pejorative, of other sub- or supertypes or close relatives of peddlers include: == chandlerLink title == may refer to many different meanings: Profession: A chandlerBold textItalic text is someone who makes or sells wax or tallow candles, and also usually soap. ... Collier may refer to: a bulk cargo ship that carried coal. ... [Flying Tippler] - NTU. The sport of seeing which bird could fly the longest originated from England in 1840. ... A milliner is a person who designs, makes, or sells womens hats. ... Wool in a shearing shed Long and short hair wool at the South Central Family Farm Research Center in Boonesville, AR Wool sheep, Royal Melbourne Show Wool is the fibre derived from the fur of animals of the Caprinae family, principally sheep and goats, but the hair of other mammals...

• Huckster
• Pusher
• Door-to-door salesman
• Travelling salesman
• Seller
• Haberdasher
• varyag, Russian (from Varangian, now also peddler)

Pedlar is the British English spelling of peddler. Although there are basic similarities between the activities in the Old World and the New World there are also significant differences. In Britain the word was more specific to an individual selling small items of household goods from door to door. It was not usually applied to gypsies. A huckster is a seller of small articles, usually of cheap or shoddy quality, or one engaged in haggling or making petty bargains. ... Pusher Slang for a drug dealer A Danish movie by Nicolas Winding Refn, Pusher (movie) (1996), Pusher II (movie) (2004) or Pusher III (movie) (2005) An aircraft configuration, Pusher configuration A criminal villain from the American television show The X-Files with psychic abilities. ... Door-to-door selling is a technique used in sales, it is one of the most difficult forms of selling. ... The traveling salesman problem (TSP), also known as the traveling salesperson problem, is a problem in discrete or combinatorial optimization. ... Sales, or the activity of selling, forms an integral part of commercial activity. ... A haberdasher is a person who sells small items via retail, commonly items used in clothing, such as ribbons and buttons, or completed accessories, such as hats or gloves. ... Varyag (Russian: Viking) may refer to: Varangian Soviet aircraft carrier Varyag Russian cruiser Varyag This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... The Varangians (Russian: Variags, Варяги) were Scandinavians who travelled eastwards, mainly from Jutland and Sweden. ... The Roma people (singular Rom; sometimes Rroma, Rrom), often referred to as Gipsies, are a heterogeneous ethnic group who live primarily in Southern and Eastern Europe, Western Asia, Latin America, southern states of North America and the Middle East. ...

• Food traders were normally badgers
• sellers of chapbooks were chapmen; compare the term Stationer which described a bookseller (usually near a university) whose shop was fixed and permanent.

A Badger was, in English, a term of uncertain derivation (possibly derived from bagger, in allusion to the hawkers bag) for a dealer in food, such as corn or victuals (more expressly, fish, butter or cheese), which he has purchased in one place and brought for sale to another... A pamphlet is an unbound booklet (that is, without a hard cover or binding). ... A Chapman, plural Chapmen was an itinerant seller of chapbooks, broadside ballads, and other items in early modern Britain. ... Stationery, a shortening, recorded since 1727, of stationary wares (circa 1680) is a general name given to paper and office supplies such as envelopes, notepads, pens, pencils, erasers, paper clips, staples, etcetera. ...

See also

• List of archaic English words and their modern equivalents

This is a list of archaic English words and their modern equivalents. ...

Sources and references

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• J.R. Dolan (1964). Yankee Peddlers of Early America.
• R.L. Wright (1927). Hawkers and Walkers in Early America.
• EtymologyOnLine & [1]
• Spufford, M., (1984) The Great Reclothing of Rural England: Petty Chapmen and their Wares in the Seventeenth Century
• Spufford, M., (1981) Small Books and Pleasant Histories

Popular Fiction and its Readership in seventeenth Century England Encyclopædia Britannica, the 11th edition The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–1911) is perhaps the most famous edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ...