Pedlar

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A person known for trading goods while traveling to various places is commonly regarded as a mobile vendor
2. Someone who travels to different locations seeking to sell various items
3. A merchant who moves from place to place offering products for sale

Etymology: The word "pedlar" is the British spelling of "peddler," and its roots reach back to Middle English, where it appeared as "pedlare," a variant of "pedare." Those earlier forms belong to the same family of trading words, and the surviving spellings show how the vowel and consonant shapes settled over the centuries. The "-ar" ending follows the pattern of many English words for people who perform a particular activity, so the word names the trader by the act of trading along the road. Because the form is a variant of a Middle English predecessor rather than a borrowing from another language, its story is largely one of spelling divergence within English itself. The two versions, "pedlar" and "peddler," are simply regional treatments of the same word, with the first favored in British usage and the second in American.

Synonyms: vendor, peddler, salesperson