Hucksterism

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. The act of using trickery or deceit in selling merchandise while capitalizing on inflated representations of value
2. The practice of promoting and selling goods through deceptive tactics and exaggerated claims about their worth is indicative of a certain approach to commerce
3. Engaging in the sales of products by employing misleading techniques and inflating their perceived value characterizes a specific commercial behavior

Etymology: Hucksterism is a plain compound: "huckster" with the suffix "-ism" added. The noun "huckster" is itself an English word of Germanic origin, and the "-ism" ending comes from Greek "-ismos" by way of Latin and French, where it turned actions and states into nouns. So the word is built from two parts that each arrived in English by different routes. The suffix is the older element in the story. It descends from Greek forms ending in "-ismos", which were used to make nouns of action or condition, and English took it up as a productive way to name a practice or a system. Attaching it to "huckster" gives a name for the habit of behaving like a huckster: a whole manner of selling, not a single act.