shill

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verb

ˈshil

shilled; shilling; shills

Synonyms of shill next

intransitive verb

: to act as a shill

: to act as a spokesperson or promoter

the eminent Shakespearean producer … is now shilling for a brokerage house—

Andy Rooney

shill

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noun

: one who acts as a decoy (as for a pitchman or gambler)

: one who makes a sales pitch or serves as a promoter

: pitch sense 8a

Did you know?

The Conniving Roots of Shill

The action at the heart of the verb shill—promoting someone or something for pay—is not, on its face, unseemly. After all, that is what marketers and public relations firms do. But when someone is said to be shilling for something or someone there is a distinct note of disapproval, and often the implication that the act is somehow corrupt or dishonest, or that the product or person being promoted is not to be trusted. This connotation is actually the word’s birthright: in the early 1900s, the noun shill referred to a type of con artist, specifically one who aided others in their efforts to part people from their money. For example, a shill might be paid to fake a big win at a casino to make a game look easily winnable. The first uses of the verb shill, appearing around the same time as the noun, show it applying to the kinds of cons shills did, but the term eventually came to be used in cases when someone was simply promoting someone or something. Perhaps fitting for a word with a criminal past, shill has a mysterious origin: it’s thought to be a shortened form of the older synonymous term shillaber, but the etymological trail goes cold there.

Examples of shill in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

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Verb

What was a French Canadian woman with no professed affinity for football who makes very few public appearances these days doing shilling for the NFL? —

Justin Curto, Vulture, 7 Oct. 2024 The Trump decision follows a long line of cases in which the current majority has shilled for relentless forces that crave a powerful presidency, a weakened Congress, weaker protections for consumer and the environment, and the trampling of reproductive choice in favor of religious zealotry. —

Sun Sentinel Editorial Board, Sun Sentinel, 5 Aug. 2024

Noun

His other abiding project has been identifying what’s the matter with the Democrats, and his answer, which chimes with al-Gharbi’s, is that the Party’s upper ranks have been infiltrated by anti-populist corporate shills. —

Andrew Marantz, The New Yorker, 14 Dec. 2024 The main villain of the piece, Simba’s dreadful uncle Scar, is a superior bad guy, pensive and brooding rather than angry or shill. —

Christopher Arnott, Hartford Courant, 21 Nov. 2024 See all Example Sentences for shill