Shilled

Part of speech: verb

Definitions

1. To support a product or service in a deceptive manner while keeping one's personal gain hidden
2. To secretly endorse or advertise a product, service, or idea for one's own advantage without revealing the true motive
3. Acts to boost or recommend something publicly while concealing the personal benefits involved

Etymology: Shilled is simply the past tense of "shill," so the story belongs to the verb itself. "Shill" first appears as a verb in 1914 and as a noun in 1916, and it entered English through "carny," the slang of travelling fairground and carnival workers. A carny shill was a confederate who posed as an ordinary member of the crowd, cheering and buying tickets so that genuine customers would be drawn to the attraction. The verb's exact ancestry is unknown. One suggestion links it to the surname Shillaber or Shillibeer, and another to a German word, "Schieber," meaning black marketeer or profiteer, but neither is well supported. A third idea connects it to the American humorist Benjamin Penhallow Shillaber, who wrote under a female pen name, but the evidence for that link is thin. The sense of secret, paid promotion that the verb carries today grew directly out of that carnival trick of pretending to be an unpaid bystander.

Synonyms: promoted, endorsed