peddle
English
[edit]Etymology
[edit]Back-formation from pedlar. (Compare burgle from burglar.)
Pronunciation
[edit]Verb
[edit]peddle (third-person singular simple present peddles, present participle peddling, simple past and past participle peddled)
- To sell things, especially door to door or in insignificant quantities.
- 1913, Joseph C[rosby] Lincoln, chapter III, in Mr. Pratt’s Patients, New York, N.Y., London: D[aniel] Appleton and Company, →OCLC:
- My hopes wa'n't disappointed. I never saw clams thicker than they was along them inshore flats. I filled my dreener in no time, and then it come to me that 'twouldn't be a bad idee to get a lot more, take 'em with me to Wellmouth, and peddle 'em out. Clams was fairly scarce over that side of the bay and ought to fetch a fair price.
- To sell illegal narcotics.
- 1974, 42:19 from the start, in Gone in 60 Seconds:
- - How much you think this stuff is worth?
- Yeah, there must be a million bucks' worth.
- Think we could peddle it?
- Oh, you can always get rid of it.
- (derogatory, figuratively) To spread or cause to spread.
- 2009, Michael John Beashel, Unshackled, page 166:
- Christine walked a dangerous line, peddling gossip about her detested son-in-law.
- 2012, Niamh O'Connor, Taken, page 166:
- Roberts was a drug dealer, nicknamed 'King Krud', who peddled death and misery.
- 2014 October 21, Oliver Brown, “Oscar Pistorius jailed for five years – sport afforded no protection against his tragic fallibilities: Bladerunner's punishment for killing Reeva Steenkamp is but a frippery when set against the burden that her bereft parents, June and Barry, must carry [print version: No room for sentimentality in this tragedy, 13 September 2014, p. S22]”, in The Daily Telegraph (Sport)[1]:
- Yes, there were instances of grandstanding and obsessive behaviour, but many were concealed at the time to help protect an aggressively peddled narrative of [Oscar] Pistorius the paragon, the emblem, the trailblazer.
- 2022 January 12, Nigel Harris, “Comment: Unhappy start to 2022”, in RAIL, number 948, page 3:
- As for the IRP, Secretary of State Grant Shapps continues to peddle snake oil, smoke and mirrors. His reaction to near-universal IRP condemnation from politicians, local and national media, and all but a few rail specialists was to dismiss the lot of us (in the condescending and patronising tone we have now come to expect) as "critics and naysayers".
Derived terms
[edit]Related terms
[edit]Translations
[edit]to sell things, especially door to door
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to sell illegal narcotics
to spread or cause to spread
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References
[edit]- “peddle”, in Lexico, Dictionary.com; Oxford University Press, 2019–2022.