Ragseller

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. A merchant who deals in used and often damaged clothing items aims to profit from textiles that are no longer new
2. A trader specializing in the sale of worn-out garments often collects and resells clothing that has seen better days
3. One who sells secondhand or tattered clothes, typically for reuse or recycling

Etymology: A ragseller is about as plain as compounds get: two ordinary English words placed side by side, with "rag" (a scrap of worn or torn cloth) and "seller" (one who sells) joined into a single noun. The first element carries the sense of cloth that has already been used up, so the compound names a trader whose stock is old, frayed or damaged fabric rather than anything fresh from the mill. The pairing is transparent in a way many English words are not. Nothing about "ragseller" has shifted in meaning from its parts; a reader who knows "rag" and "seller" already knows the word. Its interest lies only in how readily English builds such trade names from a material and the verb for selling it, a pattern that also gives us words like "fishmonger" in older form, though that is a different suffix.

Synonyms: ragpicker, trader