Peddle

Part of speech: verb

Pronunciation: /ˈpɛdəl/

Definitions

1. To engage in the act of selling items, often in small doses and usually while traveling, or to promote ideas or products in a continuous manner
2. The action of selling small quantities of merchandise on the go, alongside the persistent advocacy or promotion of various concepts or items
3. To offer goods for sale in a casual or mobile manner; to actively promote or disseminate certain ideas or beliefs

Etymology: The verb "peddle" is a back-formation: it was made by stripping an ending off an existing noun. The noun came first. "Pedlar" was a wandering seller of small goods, and English speakers, seeing the "-ar" ending as the agent suffix found in words like "burglar" from "burgle", treated "pedlar" as if it were "pedl" plus "-ar" and then produced a new verb, "peddle," by removing that supposed suffix. The verb therefore describes what a pedlar does, not the other way round. The same pattern gave English "burgle" from "burglar," which is the comparison the source offers. In both cases the verb was reconstructed from a noun whose ending looked like an agent marker, so the verb is more recent than the noun it is built on.

Synonyms: sell, hawker, vend, market, distribute

Antonyms: buy, purchase, acquire, obtain, receive