What is a Monger?

Selling what the public is buying

Saturdays are perfect days for etymological surprises. Surprise—we’re talking about mongers and mongering today!

While terms like fishmonger and warmonger come up fairly often in English, unspecified mongers never turn up. Clearly, this title carries some conditional relationships.

Many foundational languages from Proto Germanic to Old Norse include a word similar to monger that means trader or merchant. Most of these may be traced back to the Latin mango meaning trader (not mango) and might go back even further to Greek or perhaps a different word or root.

For modern purposes, consider -MONGER a word root meaning dealer or trader, though the term often has a derogatory connotation. Each -MONGER word can be used as a noun or a verb.

While one can monger or be a monger of just about anything, here are the most self-evident uses of the term:

• fashionmonger

• fishmonger

• newsmonger

• ironmonger

Some types of mongers deserve a bit more definition:

costermonger (noun) - someone who sells goods or produce from a street card (also coster or costard)

fellmonger (noun) - someone who deals in hides or skins for tanning
BREAKDOWN: FEL- (skin, hide) + -MONGER (dealer)

rumormonger (noun) - someone who who spreads rumors and divulges secrets (also gossipmonger and scandalmonger)

scaremonger (noun) - someone who spreads alarming or ominous news

warmonger (noun) - someone who incites or advocates war or aggression

wordmonger (noun) - someone who uses words carelessly or pretentiously
BREAKDOWN: WORD- (word, speech) + -MONGER (dealer)

“To be overwise is to ossify; and the scruple-monger ends by standing stockstill.” —Robert Louis Stevenson