ENGLISH
REFERENCE

huck

n. countable
C2 Proficiency US //ˈhək// huck Archaic Dialect Informal

n. a person who is very dishonest or a trickster. It is an old-fashioned word used to describe someone who tries to cheat or fool others.

n. a person who is dishonest, a trickster, or a swindler. Primarily used in the United States and considered archaic or dialectal in modern contexts.


SIMPLE

He was a real huck who tried to sell fake gold.

CONTEXTUAL

The old man was known as a huck for his many attempts to con tourists out of their money.

COMPLEX

In the frontier towns of the nineteenth century, a huck was often a traveling salesman who relied on deception to sell inferior goods to unsuspecting residents.

Synonyms
Etymology 1

Unknown. Perhaps a variant of chuck or hoick.

Etymology 2

Backformation from huckle, or from Middle English hoke (“hook”); compare hokebone (“hip”).

Etymology 3

From Middle English hukken, related to German höken (“to haggle; traffic”).

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